Sleeping Dragons 04: Atonement
by Soledad
Summary: UNIT is about to clear out the abandoned Torchwood lab under the Thames flood barrier. They found something they hadn't expected to find. Story complete.
1. Chapter 1: The Foundling

**Sleeping Dragons 04 - Atonement  
**

**by Soledad**

**Fandom:** Torchwood AU, with inevitable elements of Dr. Who.

**Genre: **Action-adventure.

**Rating:** General to Teens, for most parts.

**Disclaimer: **Dr. Who and Torchwood – settings and characters – belong to the BBC. I am just borrowing them. No copyright infringement intended and no money made.

**Timeline:** Right before and during the 2nd season episode "Sleepers" for Torchwood.

**Series: **Torchwood Alternate Season 2. Follows directly after "Smiths & Joneses".

**Summary:** UNIT is about to clear out the abandoned Torchwood lab under the Thames flood barrier. They found something they hadn't expected to find.

* * *

**Chapter 01 – The Foundling**

**Author's note: **The technobabble; has been taken from "The Runaway Bride" and from the TARDIS Wiki, respectively. I don't even pretend to understand it.

* * *

Captain Erisa Magambo, one of UNIT's finest, was _not_ a happy woman. She had chosen her career to fight alien invasions – like at the time when those stingray-like… _things_ came through that wormhole – not to clean up Torchwood's mess. And yet, for the second time within a few years, she found herself doing exactly _that_.

Of course, the first time didn't really count. _All_ available officers had been temporarily reassigned after the Battle of Canary Wharf to contain the situation. Plus, there _had_ been the very real chance that they would have to fight and destroy hordes of half-converted Cybermen. There, her military expertise had been _needed_.

But here? The secret Torchwood base under the Thames flood barrier had been destroyed years ago and waiting for a clean-out for almost as long. Jack Harkness from Torchwood Three had paid the place a visit, shortly after they had finished at Canary Wharf, had all potentially dangerous stuff either destroyed or removed, and then declared that he did not need the place and UNIT could have it, as far as he was concerned.

UNIT had no use for the destroyed labs, either, so they had sealed it and let it collect dust. Now however, the recently established new commanding officer of the British division, Colonel Augustus Oduya, had decided that they needed to clean out the destroyed labs, so that UNIT could use them for their own research. And he obviously thought that Captain Magambo was the right person to lead the clean-out team.

She knew, of course, why she had been chosen. She was the protégée of The Brig and had been greatly valued by Colonel Mace, too. Colonel Oduya, who had only achieved his current position because of the unfortunate scandal resulting in Colonel Mace's reassignment to that small, insignificant base outside Cardiff, hated and mistrusted those who had been close to his predecessors. He had already removed Captain Marion Price from Headquarters, sending her to a lab to rot; and he clearly intended to do something similar to Magambo, so that he could put his own sycophants into the key positions.

Erisa Magambo was determined to make it as difficult for her new commanding officer as possible. As a woman aiming for a military career, se was disciplined and used to put up with a lot more than her male comrades would ever have to. She was _not_ giving Colonel Oduya any excuse to get rid of her. If the Colonel wanted her gone, he'd have to come up with an _acceptable_ reason; and with her spotless record, only a promotion would be possible.

She could live with _that_.

She had to admit, though, that the former Torchwood labs were impressive, even in their ruins. The rooms were huge and extensive, a true honeycomb of interconnected research facilities, and the equipment that was too large to be removed – or permanently integrated into the walls – included pieces of the finest alien technology she had ever seen… and she _had_ seen her fair share of alien tech.

"This is simply amazing!" Lieutenant Anna Zhou, a young exchange officer from the Chinese division, looked around herself, duly impressed. "What was Torchwood doing here anyway? What did they need such complicated machinery for?"

"As far as I know, they were producing Huon particles, among other things," Magambo replied.

Lieutenant Zhou frowned. "Huon… _what_?"

"Ancient particles from the so-called Dark Times," Professor Malcolm Taylor, who had been called in to help identifying possible alien energy sources, explained. "They are potentially deadly and contain a great amount of energy. In our time, they theoretically shouldn't even exist, as they were destroyed by the Time Lords, billions of years ago, due to their being harmful."

"Why?" the Chinese lieutenant asked. "What can they do?"

"Well, the only thing we know is that they attract other Huon particles," Professor Taylor replied. "A highly dangerous extraterrestrial race called the Racnoss used them in their technology, to power their spacecraft and for other purposes. They can be created by using a hydrogen base to create them in liquid form, in which inert status then they need to be activated in a living being; for example in a human body. They can be drunk in water, and then, if the text subject is in a stressful situation, they are activated. This process can take a whole six months… or it can happen in a few minutes. It all depends on the amount the test subject consumes and how quickly they do it."

That was already a more detailed answer than it would have been strictly necessary. But that was scientists for you. Once they had warmed up to a topic, it was impossible to shut them up.

Unless you shot them dead, but Magambo found _that_ a bit extreme in the given situation.

Lieutenant Zhou, surprisingly enough, didn't seem particularly intimidated by Professor Taylor's spontaneous lecture, and Magambo had the uncomfortable feeling that she actually _understood_ the explanation; or, at least, part of it. Who could tell what sort of education the Chinese division demanded from their officers? As much as she knew, Zhou could have been a cyberneticist or a nuclear scientist… whatever. The Chinese were a secretive lot.

"What happens once these Huon particles have been activated?" Zhou pressed on.

Professor Taylor shrugged. "Well, they start to glow and become magnetized, for starters, attracting other Huon particles. It's been theorized that if enough of them are absorbed – say, a whole gallon or so – they could even pull other Huon particles from different time zones."

"Which was what happened to the Doctor, shortly before the failed Racnoss invasion," Magambo added.

"The Professor nodded. "Yes. The only place you could find Huon particles in our time is a small remnant in the Doctor's TARDIS. But you can recreate them, as we've seen, extruding them through a flat hydrogen base; these lot here used the Thames as a source."

"But what did Torchwood need Huon particles for?" the lieutenant wondered.

"_They_ didn't," Professor Taylor replied with a shrug. "The civilian firm that was leasing the labs, _H C Clemens_, had been tricked into manufacturing them by the Racnoss that wanted to reanimate their hibernating offspring, billions of years after they had lost the war against the Time Lords. Long story, but you can look it up in the Archives… assuming you get a high enough security clearance, which I very much doubt," he gave the young officer a distracted look and went on prodding the machinery in the next room.

"I find it strange that Torchwood simply gave up these labs," Lieutenant Zhou said, mildly suspicious. "All this highly advanced technology, and no-one laid claim on it? Why did UNIT not take it if Torchwood wouldn't?"

"It's not that simple," Magambo sighed. "Nominally, all this would belong to Torchwood One. But Her Majesty the Queen closed Torchwood One after the Battle of Canary Wharf. Right now, the new director of the Institute, a certain Mr. Jones, would have jurisdiction here, but he doesn't have the manpower to rebuild the labs. Besides, what's left of Torchwood is in Cardiff and in Glasgow, respectively. At the moment, it's just not doable for either of them to deal with the leftovers of Torchwood One. Watching the Cardiff Rift is more urgent."

"Will Torchwood One be ever reopened, ma'am?" Lieutenant Zhou mused.

"Not for a while yet, but in the long run, yeah, I think so." Magambo replied. "They are _needed_. UNIT is a military organization, and while we have a lot of leeway, compared with the regular armed forces – and can do a lot of things worldwide – in certain situations our hands are tied. Torchwood, on the other hand, is a private foundation, answering to the Queen alone. They can move in to the grey zones where _we_ cannot."

Lieutenant Zhou didn't seem to be fully persuaded about the potential usefulness of Torchwood, but before she could have come up with another argument, Corporal Potofsky, Magambo's right-hand-man, came in running, excitement written all over his face.

"Captain, you've got to see this! You, too, Professor," he added hurriedly as an afterthought.

Magambo arched a surprised eyebrow. As a rule, Potofsky was not prone to over-excitement. At least a full-scale alien invasion was required for him to raise his voice, so whatever he and his men had found, it must have been extraordinary.

Still, it didn't behove for an experienced non-comm officer to behave like this, and that in front of a green lieutenant from a foreign country.

"Yes, Corporal," Magambo said patiently. "What _is_ it that, in your expert opinion, I have to see?"

"Not _what_, ma'am," Potofsky recognized the reproachful tone of his superior officer's voice and pulled himself together a little. "_Whom_."

_That_ silenced Magambo for a moment. They hadn't expected to find any living thing down here. In fact, she was positive that the labs had been checked meticulously and found empty before they'd have been sealed.

"All right," she said. "Show me the way."

* * *

Potofsky took them down with the still functioning lift to the lowest level, where electric scooters were waiting for them. These had belonged to the secret Torchwood labs and had been left there after the closing down of the facility, as using them anywhere else would have raised questions the people in charge had not wanted to answer. Magambo had to admit that while it felt a bit silly for an adult, especially for an officer, to ride them, it was still faster and more comfortable than walking down the long, dark, dank corridor that stretched seemingly endlessly in front of them, dimly lit with an eerie green light.

"Emergency lights?" she asked.

Potofsky shook his head. "As far as we can tell, ma'am, there has never been any other illumination, not even at the time the labs were running at full capacity."

"That's odd," Magambo commented. "It doesn't sound like Torchwood at all. Director Hartmann always preferred a bright and sophisticated environment."

"This might not have anything to do with her ambitions," Potofsky replied. "Perhaps the ones in charge here didn't want uninvited visitors and did their best to discourage them. Ah, we're there."

_There_ was a nondescript door at the end of the corridor, which announced in big, bold letters: "Torchwood – authorised personnel only". They abandoned their scooters and Potofsky turned the wheel in the middle of the door, opening it and revealing a ladder behind it.

"Corporal, you gotta be kidding!" Magambo scowled. "Are you telling me this is the only way up?"

"Afraid so, ma'am," Potofsky said apologetically. "But we don't have to climb it – it leads to a manhole through which we can get out of the whole complex, right to the Thames Barrier. We're following this narrow passage that crosses under the ladder, though; that's where the really cool things are."

Magambo felt decidedly uninspired to share the corporal's enthusiasm – Potofsky had always been a bit obsessed with this James Bond stuff – but followed him nonetheless, After a short, uncomfortable walk, they came to another door, this one without any sign, which opened before them automatically, allowing them to stop into a cavernous room full of massive test tubes and other equipment too heavy to be moved.

"Looks like a chemistry lab," Lieutenant Zhou commented. "A fairly big one, at that."

"Oh, but it is!" Professor Taylor replied enthusiastically. "This is where the particle extrusion took place!"

"The _what_?" Magambo and Potofsky chorused. The professor tended to believe that everyone else had half a dozen degrees in various hard sciences, too.

"Where they manufactured the Huon particles," the Chinese lieutenant explained, strengthening Magambo's suspicion that she was a great deal more than just a simple exchange officer. "These," she gestured at the test tubes, now empty and probably dysfunctional, "were used to extract hydrogen from the river water, and that EN generator over there was needed to magnetize them, so that they could attract other Huon particles."

"Exactly," the professor beamed at her like a proud teacher at a promising student. "You're brilliant, my dear. And so were they."

"_Insane_ would be a more accurate description," Magambo scowled. "This is all nice and good, Corporal, but it's nothing we hadn't known before. So, why would I have to see this?"

"Not this," Potofsky grinned. "This is just the antechamber. The really cool stuff is behind _there_."

He hit a button on one of the seemingly dormant control consoles, at which one of the walls slid upwards noiselessly to reveal a secret chamber with an enormous round hole in the floor. Several UNIT soldiers surrounded the rim of the hole, aiming with their rifles downward.

Giving Potofsky a doubtful look, Magambo walked to the perimeter and peered down, expecting to see some sort of alien monster. A Hoix perhaps, or even a Slitheen. Instead, curled up in a foetal position and shivering with cold and fear, there was a young man on the bottom of the chute.

A very ordinary-looking young man, in his mid-twenties, as far as she could guess from this considerable distance. The chute was very deep and quite dark to tell for sure.

"At least fifty or sixty feet," Potofsky judged. "We don't have a ladder that would be long enough. We'll have to let someone down on a rope."

"Let's do it," Magambo ordered. "We should have the right gear in one of the trucks. Bring some rope. I'd _love_ to ask this gentleman what is he doing down there – not to mention how he managed to break into a restricted and doubly secured area."

"Do you think it will be safe to let someone down to him, ma'am?" Lieutenant Zhou eyed the trapped young man suspiciously. "He may be armed."

"Perhaps," Magambo allowed," but his first priority would be to get out of that rat-trap, and he wouldn't achieve _that_ by attacking whoever goes down to pull him out."

"He might be cooperative at the moment," Zhou agreed. "What about later, though?"

"We're armed, too," Magambo answered with a shrug, "and we're used to deal with intruders. We'll keep a close eye on him. A _very_ close one."

In the meantime, Potofsky had returned with a huge coil of rope, the weight of which made him stagger slightly, and with the rest of the mountaineering equipment. With the help of another soldier, he quickly drove the winch into the concrete floor, threaded the rope through it, and then stretched out his arms, so that the other man could help him into the harness that would enable him to bring their suspect up with him at once.

"Secure the upper end of the rope," he instructed the other soldier, "and use the winch to let me down. Slow and steady; the walls of this chute are smooth like glass, but I can still break my bones if I swing the wrong way… or too heavily."

The young soldier followed his instructions faithfully, and Potofsky climbed over the rim of the hole and began his slow, careful descent into the chute. He was experienced with this sort of equipment; still, Magambo wished there would be another way to extract their uninvited visitor. She did not risk the lives of her men lightly.

"Is it true that the Racnoss blasted this hole in the ground, to save their hibernating offspring?" Lieutenant Zhou asked.

Magambo shook her head. "Nah; that's rubbish; which is why you shouldn't listen to the soldiers' gossip. It was Torchwood One that laser-drilled the chute for them."

"But why? Weren't they created to fight alien invasions, just like UNIT? Why would they help them instead?"

Magambo shrugged. "I'm not a scientist; even if I were, this kind of technology would go way above my head. No-one knows the exact details, but the consensus seems to be that Torchwood One was mislead by the human agents of the Racnoss. They actually believed that Huon particles could be used as an alternate energy source, and with the help of them, they could solve the energy problems of Earth."

"God beware us from good intentions in the hands of megalomaniacs," Lieutenant Zhou muttered.

"Quite right," Magambo agreed. "Still, the problem with new scientific discoveries is that you cannot tell in advance how they will turn out. Not until it comes to amazing breakthrough – or horrible disasters. But if we don't even give them a try, we could as well climb back into the trees and fight the apes for bananas."

"Captain," one of the soldiers, interrupted their discussion with an apologetic face, "Potofsky's hit bottom, ma'am. We're gonna pull 'em up now."

"Good," Magambo said. "Just be careful, Private. We don't want either of them injured."

"Yes, ma'am," the young soldier laid his rifle down, so that he could focus on operating the winch. He did it by hand, rather than using the electronic drive. "Hold on, Corporal," he said into the microphone of his earpiece. "We're starting _now_."

"Ready to go," the tiny voice of Potofsky answered.

The young soldier grabbed the handle of the winch with both hands and started turning it. He worked slowly and carefully, keeping his moves smooth and steady, but even so, the two men at the other end of the rope bounced against the wall of the chute a couple of times, if their muffled groans of pain were any indication.

"Careful, Private!" Magambo warned the soldier. "I want them in one piece; and unharmed, at least as far as Corporal Potofsky is concerned."

"I'm trying my best, ma'am," the young soldier replied through gritted teeth, his smooth, dark face shiny with perspiration.

After several seemingly endless minutes – the chute was _really_ deep, they had needed the entire length of the rope to get Potofsky down to the bottom – a red beret appeared just above the rim of the hole. The young soldier made one last effort, and in the next moment two of his comrades reached down with their free hands and pulled the corporal and his foundling, both secured in the harness, to the safety of stable ground.

"Good work, Corporal," Magambo said to Potofsky; then she glanced at the young soldier at the winch. "You, too, Private. Lieutenant Zhou, take over coordinating the clean-out for me, will you? And you," she looked at the two soldiers who were freeing Potofsky and his foundling from the harness, "take this gentleman to the former office of Mr. Clemens. I'll have words with him."

"Yes, ma'am," everyone chorused crisply, although the lieutenant seemed a bit disappointed that she wouldn't be present at the investigation. Well, tough shit; this was British business and none of her concern.

The soldiers gave the young man pitying looks. Having _words_ with Captain Magambo was a well-known source of repetitive nightmares.

* * *

_H C Clements_, the company serving as the front of the underground labs of Torchwood One, had been a security firm, nominally, made up by the Torchwood Institute, two and a half decades earlier. Consequently, it had a multi-storey building _above_ ground as well; a moderately modern one, yet one with an up-to-date security system that had kept it sealed since the Racnoss disaster.

Which made the question how the unknown young man had managed to get in all the more interesting, of course.

The office of the late Mr Clemens was on the top floor and had stood empty ever since, save for a large, mahogany-coloured desk and a couple of chairs. Captain Magambo took the comfortable, albeit fairly dusky chair behind the desk, while Corporal Palmer, an experienced veteran re-drafted after the heavy losses due to the Sontaran invasion, pulled another one to the narrow end of the desk and set up his laptop, enhanced with alien technology of course, to record the interrogation – and to correlate the necessary data for his superior officer.

Magambo sent a young Private, whose name she couldn't remember, to fetch them both some coffee, and then ordered their foundling to be brought in.

Two soldiers escorted their suspect in – because what else could he be called, given the circumstances? – pushed him onto the chair opposite Magambo and stayed behind him, just in case he'd try something stupid. Like attempting to bolt, for example.

Magambo eyed him with cold, professional curiosity. Her first estimate had been mostly correct: from close up, he seemed in his early twenties, dark-haired and dark-eyed and quite good-looking; almost pretty. He also had the air of those spoiled brats about him who had never worked really hard, and his eyes were haunted. His nondescript black jeans and button-down black shirt, with its neck open, gave no indication of what he might have been doing for a living – if anything. On the other hand, he didn't reek of money, either, so he probably wasn't one of the rich playboys, after all.

In any case, he was an enigma, and his presence in the sealed-off secret labs a dangerous break of security. So Magambo was determined to find out everything that was there to know about him.

_Absolutely_ everything.

"Well, young man," she said after a lengthy silence, during which her suspect had done his best not to squirm on his chair, although he was clearly uncomfortable, "it seems we're gonna have a _long_ discussion, you and me, so let's start with introductions. I'm Captain Erisa Magambo from the British division of UNIT, responsible for this particular operation. I'm empowered to deal with any obstacles as I see fit, so it would be in your best interest to give me a plausible explanation _why_ did we find you in a top secret facility that had been sealed off for years by top secret security measures; and, more importantly, _how_ did you manage to break in?"

She did not elaborate _how_ she was supposed to deal with obstacles. It had been her experience that unknown threats were a great deal more frightening for suspects than any concrete danger. And once again, it worked like a charm. The young man swallowed nervously, several times – and then he gave her the lamest excuse she had heard during her entire career as a UNIT officer, which was saying a lot. Most young Privates transgressing the rules tended to come up with spectacularly stupid explanations.

"I… I didn't mean it," he muttered. "It was an accident."

Corporal Palmer couldn't withhold a derisive snort. Despite his decades-long experience in the line of duty, today's youth still managed to surprise him, as the incredulous expression of his long, deeply lined face showed. His pale, almost colourless eyes narrowed in suspicion, muttered something under that long nose of his that wasn't particularly flattering.

Although such behaviour was considered unbecoming in the presence of a superior officer, Magambo couldn't really blame him, because really, an _accident_? _Nobody_ broke into a restricted, high-security area by _accident_.

"I think you can do better than that, Mister…" she trailed off expectantly. The young man got the clue.

"Mitchell," he said hurriedly. "Adam Mitchell. And I _swear_ it was an accident, ma'am, honestly! I didn't even know that this place existed to begin with!"

He spoke in the manner as used in Manchester and surrounding, albeit with a slight American colouring. Which was strange, Magambo found. Usually, one needed to live in the States for _years_ to pick up that undertone. Could the young man have crossed the ocean, just to break into a secret yet basically empty Torchwood lab? What could he have hoped to find here?

He also sounded more than a little hysterical. If he was a spy, he couldn't be a very good one. _Or_ a very experienced one.

"I find that a little hard to believe," Magambo said in an almost friendly tone. "Why don't you start at the beginning, Mr Mitchell? For starters, where are you from?"

"Manchester," he replied, unsurprisingly naming an address in one of the suburbs of the city. "You can check it…"

"Oh, I intend to, don't worry," Magambo glanced at Palmer. "Corporal, if you would?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Palmer was already hacking into the official records of the City of Manchester, calling up all available information of the people living under the given address… and frowned. "There's a Mrs Judy Mitchell registered to live there all right. However, it's mentioned that her only son, one Adam Mitchell, is currently living in the United States, somewhere near Salt Lake City."

"_Somewhere_?" Magambo repeated with marked displeasure.

Palmer shrugged. "He's apparently employed by _GeoComTex_; those guys are a secretive lot, ma'am."

"Can you hack into their personnel files?" Magambo asked. "If our… guest here is _their_ Adam Mitchell, he's clearly _not_ in the States right now. If we can get hold of their Adam Mitchell, though, then ours here is a fake."

Palmer shook his head apologetically, his large ears almost flapping with the effort. Had they not been dealing with a potential security risk, it would have been a funny moment.

"Sorry, ma'am; not with this equipment. _GeoComTex_ practically owns the internet, the only computer sophisticated enough to hack into their system would have been the Mainframe of Torchwood One, but that has been destroyed in the Battle of Canary Wharf."

"I know," Magambo said dryly. "I saw what was left of it; a shame for such an advanced system. But what's this nonsense about _GeoComTex_ owning the internet? _Nobody_ owns the internet."

"Yeah, that's what Mr van Stratten likes to make you believe," their guest muttered. "As long as he isn't found out, he can manipulate the flow of information as he pleases. _Including _the outcome of the elections."

Magambo gave him a look full of mistrust. "And you know that… how exactly, if I may ask?"

"I used to work for him," the young man replied; then he corrected himself. "Well, I _will be _working for him, in a couple of years. Until 2012. In fact, another me, slightly younger than the current one, is still working for him. So yeah, would you be able to hack into the security system of the _GeoComTech_ headquarters, you could probably see me in the Vault right now."

"The _what_?" Palmer asked.

"The Vault," the young man repeated. "Where Mr van Stratten keeps his collection."

"I see," Magambo wasn't believing a word of the rubbish the young man was spouting, but she hoped to learn more by placating him. "And what is… was… will be your job at _GeoComTex_ exactly?"

"Purchasing and cataloguing extraterrestrial artefacts for Mr van Stratten," the young man replied matter-of-factly.

"I see," Magambo said again, without as much as blinking. "And you're a time traveller, too?"

"That was an unexpected side effect," the young man said apologetically. "All I wanted was to get away from Cardiff, where I was, oh, about three hours ago. I thought the gizmo I used was a portable teleportation device. I never wanted to cause a temporal paradox; the Doctor's made us clear how dangerous _that_ could be. And yet somehow I ended up back in time."

"The Rift," Corporal Palmer had helped cleaning out the Torchwood Hub back in 2000, right after Alex Hopkins had killed off his entire team, in the desperate effort to save them from some unknown future catastrophe, so he was vaguely informed about the existence and the peculiarities of the Cardiff Rift. "It must have triggered the time-travelling function of the artefact somehow. What year was it when you visited Cardiff?"

"2013," the young man sighed. "What a mess!"

"Quite," Magambo agreed. "Now, there are two more questions I'd like to have answered. One: where's the artefact that you used to get here? Two: how come that you'd know the Doctor? He doesn't exactly advertise his presence on Earth in these days."

"The artefact is still in the hole where you found me, I'm afraid," the young man said. "As for the Doctor… I travelled with him for a short time. With him and his companion, a girl named Rose Tyler."

"The one that was at Canary Wharf," Magambo added for Palmer's sake. "Got sucked into an alternate dimension, together with her mother, or so Torchwood Three's head geek says."

"What?" the young man cried out in anguish. He must have had a crush on that girl. "Rose's gone? But that can't be! I met her – _will_ meet her – in 2012!"

Magambo rolled her eyes. "How can somebody have travelled with a Time Lord, even if only for a short while, and still be thinking so linear? That man – alien – travels back and forth in time as you'd travel by train from Manchester to London and back! Haven't you learned anything while travelling with him?"

The young man couldn't find a proper answer to that, just looked at her with an expression that would have put a goldfish to shame. Magambo withstand the urge to roll her eyes again. And _that_ used to travel with the Doctor? Her respect for the Time Lord went down a notch or two.

Palmer looked up from his laptop. "What are we gonna do with him, ma'am? If we bring him to Headquarters, he's never gonna see the sunlight again. Colonel Oduya will see to that; you know how paranoid he is."

Magambo nodded. That was one of the thing she liked in Palmer: the Corporal was of the old school, just like herself. And just like herself, he deeply, passionately despised Colonel Oduya, the most opportunistic officer they had ever had the misfortunate to serve with.

"Well..." she said thoughtfully, "temporally misplaced people are Torchwood's responsibility. I say, contact them and let them collect our guest."

"But Torchwood London no longer exists," Palmer reminded her.

Magambo shrugged. "So what? We'll send him back to Cardiff. Harkness was a time traveller himself, he'll know what to do with Mr Mitchell. And they have those picturesque Victorian dungeons under their base; should Mr Mitchell turn out to be fake, they'll find the right cell for him, next to the latest Weevil fished out of the sewers," she pulled out her mobile phone. "Give me a secure channel, Corporal!

"Yes, ma'am," with the help of his laptop, Palmer connected her to the UNIT communications satellite. "Secure channel established. You can dial now, Captain."

Magambo had the secure landline of the Torchwood Three base on speed dial. She hit the key, and after the third ring tone somebody picked up her call.

"Torchwood."

It was a female voice; one she didn't recognize. She could recognize Jacobs, of course, they'd served together for a few years before the communications technician would have requested a transfer to Torchwood. She also knew the voice of Ms Cowell-Williams, the personal assistant of the new Torchwood director, but this voce was a new one.

"Captain Magambo from UNIT," she introduced herself. "I'd like to speak with Director Jones. Is he available?"

"Just a moment, Captain, I'll put you through to his office at once," the unknown voice answered.

There was a brief pause, then the familiar, mellow Welsh tones of Ianto Jones greeted her from the other end of the connection, cutting straight to the core, as he knew she wouldn't contact him just to chat.

"Jones here. What can I do for you, Captain?"

"We've found a temporally displaced person," Magambo replied. "We think he'd be better off with your lot. Our new commanding officer…"

"Yes, we all miss Colonel Mace in his previous position," replied the young Torchwood director dryly.

That was a double-edged comment, of course. As much as most UNIT officers at the London headquarters mourned Colonel Mace's departure, he had certainly become a pain in Torchwood's backside since his transfer to the Cardiff base.

"Anyway," Director Jones continued, "we're more than willing to take over responsibility for your displaced person. He's human I assume?"

"So he claims, and I haven't found a reason to doubt it – not yet," Magambo answered. "However, he comes from the near future, where he had access to… _sensitive_ equipment," that was their common euphemism for advanced alien technology, "so I suggest to handle him with special care."

Which meant in translation that the temporally displaced person was dubious, at the very least; potentially dangerous, too.

"Understood," the Torchwood director said slowly. "Will a standard field tem do the trick or do you need specialists?"

"I'm not sure," Magambo admitted. "There's something fishy about the man. He claims to have travelled with the Doctor, but he doesn't seem companion material to me. Not after the ones _I've _seen so far."

"They come in all shapes, ages, genders and colours," Director Jones commented philosophically. "But I think I know what you mean. Specialists, then."

"Harkness would be good," Magambo said. "And Sato, if you can send her, just in case. We'll try to retrieve the, erm, sensitive equipment in the meantime."

"All right," Jones said. "A team will be on their way within the hour. I'll send them with the SUV, so that they can secure our guest, should he cause problems. Can you keep him somewhere safe until then?"

"I hope so," Magambo was thinking furiously. Her team wouldn't babble, of that she was sure, but Lieutenant Zhou was an unknown factor. _Could_ they wait and risk that she would report in to Colonel Oduya – or to her own superiors? "Just tell your people to hurry up; I'd like to have the problem out of my hands before the Colonel learns about it."

"Is there any immediate danger that he might?" Jones asked, understandably reluctant to pick an open fight with the commanding officer of the only organization powerful enough to harm Torchwood.

"A fairly real one," Magambo admitted. "We're clearing out what's left from _H C Clemens_ and the secret Torchwood Lab underneath the Thames Barrier, and he could demand my progress report any time."

"Understood," Jones paused for a moment, mentally weighing the possible ramifications. "Can you trust your team to keep silent about our lost traveller?"

"_My_ team – yeah," Magambo tried not to feel insulted by the mere question; Jones was simply evaluating the situation, after all. "But we've got an exchange officer with us…"

"… whose loyalties might be different," the Torchwood director finished for her. "I see where that could be a problem. We'll have to use more… drastic measures. Give me twenty minutes, Captain, and I'll call you back with the alternate plan."

* * *

Said twenty minutes were spent in tense expectation. When Magambo's mobile finally rang, she nearly jumped out of her chair, which annoyed her to no end. As a rule, she wasn't particularly… _jumpy_, but she really wanted to hand her strange prisoner over to Torchwood. Permanently.

"Magambo," she identified herself.

"Jones," the Torchwood director's voice answered. "Stand by to receive our team in sixty seconds, Captain; and please keep your men from shooting at them. Despite their, say, regenerative abilities, that's always such a bloody mess. Literally."

"Sixty seconds?" Magambo repeated in shocked disbelief. "What do you mean in sixty seconds? How could your team possibly…"

She never came to finish that sentence, because in the next moment two patches of pulsing golden light took shape in the middle of the room. They quickly grow tall and wide enough for a person to step through them – like through some kind of weird interdimensional portal in a bad, low-budget sci-fi film with cheap special effects – released two people, and then collapsed behind them again, as if it had never been there.

One of the newcomers, a slender, sweet-faced blonde girl with a long ponytail, grinned triumphantly.

"Ha! I told you it would work!" she exclaimed. "Dare you to question my skills as a technician again, and I'll be rubbing this under your nose for eternity!"

The other one, whom Magambo easily recognized as Captain Jack Harkness, outdated military greatcoat and all, groaned. "Shit, rough ride! Why do these things leave me always so dehydrated?"

"Perhaps you're getting old?" the girl teased. She was wearing black denims with ankle boots and a black leather jacket over a burgundy red tank top, and seemed not the least influenced by their trip – whatever the nature of it might have been.

"Careful with the age jokes, young lady," Harkness warned her, although he didn't seem particularly upset, and why would he? He looked every bit as gorgeous as always.

Then he seemed to remember that they weren't alone and that they were here for a reason, because he turned to Magambo and virtually blinded her with his trademark thousand megawatt smile.

"Captain Magambo, I presume? I'm Captain Jack Harkness; and this is one of our technical experts, Jenny Smith."

They shook hands. The girl's grip was surprisingly strong for someone so young and slender, but under that child-like façade Magambo's experienced eye recognized the well-trained professional soldier. _Tech expert, my arse!_ She thought, wondering where Torchwood might have found the girl. She knew better than to ask, though. Both sides had their secrets.

"That was a spectacular entrée, Captain Harkness," she said instead.

Harkness grinned. "You said it was urgent. This was the shortest and fastest way to get here."

"But apparently not the most comfortable one," Magambo grinned back at him.

"My… let it call personal teleportation device, is a bit wacky," Harkness explained. "I've tried to repair it… Well, I _did_ repair it, with Jenny's help, more or less, but there are nasty side effects."

"Like arriving at your destination as a desiccated mummy," the girl added helpfully.

Harkness rolled his eyes. "Oh, c'me on, Jenny, it wasn't _that_ bad!"

The girl raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "Wasn't it? If I remember correctly, it took your four _days_ to recover from those nasty side effects."

Being one among the selected few of The Brig's protégées, Magambo knew about what Director Jones had called Harkness' _regenerative abilities_. If he needed _four days_ to recover from the last trip gone wrong, then the side effects must have been nasty indeed.

"And you still took the risk to use that thing?" she asked, shaking her head. Men and adrenaline, really!

Harkness' blinding smile dimmed a little. "You know me, Captain. Nothing can harm me; not for the duration anyway."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make dying any less painful for you than it would be for the rest of us," the girl countered. "And you know what Ianto thinks about you taking unnecessary risks."

"What about the risks for you?" Magambo asked. "Or are you like Captain Harkness here?"

The girl laughed. "Goodness, no! But _my_ teleportation device happens to work properly. It is a, well, a more advanced model than his."

"Why didn't you both use yours then?" Palmer asked, looking up from his laptop, where he was still trying to hunt down every scrap of information available about Adam Mitchell.

"Can't do that," the girl explained. "These things can only transport one person safely. Trying to take somebody with me would overload the circuits and probably burn out the whole thing."

"It would, too," Harkness agreed. "I had to escape from certain death once, taking your Dad and Martha with me… we barely managed to escape in one piece, and my vortex… my teleportation device was rendered useless."

So Harkness used to know the girl's father, Magambo mused. That explained the unusual fact that he wasn't flirting with her, then. As a rule, the man tended to flirt with everything that had a pulse and, if the rumours were true, with a few things that hadn't.

Perhaps he was taking the feelings of an old friend into consideration. Magambo's opinion about him went up a notch.

"So, does it mean that you won't be able to whisk our… _guest_ away with you, just like that?" she asked, clicking her fingers to demonstrate what she meant.

Then her jaw and that of Palmer dropped simultaneously. They stared with open-mouthed horror at the forehead of the young man, where a strange, rhombus-shaped implant… cybernetic device… whatever emerged from under the unblemished skin. The shutters of the… _thing_ opened like four identical metallic claws or spikes, revealing part of his unprotected brain through the hole in his skull.

She needed all her considerable self-discipline _not_ to get sick, and Palmer didn't seem to take it much better. Her only consolation was that even Harkness and the girl soldier were a bit green around the gills.

"Oooookay," Harkness said languidly. "That's something new. Who the hell are you? No, I'd rather know _what_ the hell are you?"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" the young man clicked his fingers and the device closed, vanishing without a trace behind his forehead. "It's just an infospike. I'm every bit as human as you are."

"Considering who _I am_, I'd seriously doubt that," Harkness had already pulled himself together. "But this is not the right time or the right place to discuss things. We must relocate somewhere safe before anyone else discovers your dirty little secret. Let me talk to Ianto, and then we'll see."

~TBC~


	2. Chapter 2: Companions

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's note: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

The technobabble; has been taken from "The Runaway Bride" and from the TARDIS Wiki, respectively. I don't even pretend to understand it.

* * *

**Chapter 02 – Companions**

Less than two hours later, they were all sitting in what had once been a Torchwood One warehouse and still contained a lot of technical equipment, waiting to be either scrapped or transported to another location. Most of it was heavy machinery of extraterrestrial nature; too different from Earth technology to be adapted, and the rest of it, as Captain Harkness succinctly declared, was just rubbish. Which was the reason why it had been left alone, ever since the closing of Torchwood One.

However, it was still Torchwood property, together with the warehouse, so Ianto Jones could dispose of it as he saw fit. And it was unimportant enough for UNIT _not_ to have bugged it. Nonetheless, the blonde girl scanned the whole room with a little handheld gizmo for surveillance devices. To their relief, she found none.

"All clean, Captain," she reported to Harkness in a clipped military tone. "Security grid has been activated."

"Good," Harkness said. "Now we can talk." He gestured towards one of the chairs that stood randomly around. "Have a seat, Captain… can I call you Erisa?"

"Try it, and I'll break your nose," Magambo replied blandly.

She was not about to get chummy with Torchwood's notorious immortal. Besides, they were in the middle of an investigation, a rather unusual one, and she didn't have all day for it. She had to get back to the labs under the Thames Barrier before Lieutenant Zhou started asking questions.

Harkness' smile, annoyingly enough, got even wider and whiter at her reply. "Your loss," he commented airily.

He pulled out a chair for himself, while the girl – Jenny – pushed their suspect down onto another one and remained standing behind him to watch his every move. She wasn't visibly armed, unlike Harkness, but Magambo had no doubt that she'd be able to break the young man's neck without conscious effort, should he try to bolt.

"Now we can perhaps get some answers," Harkness said, turning serious. "It will take a couple of hours until more… conservative transportation arrives, so we'll have ample time to interrogate this guy and have his statements checked. Captain, would you like to begin?"

Magambo nodded. She, too, wanted to get some answers, preferably first-hand, before she'd have to return to her official task.

"First and foremost, I want to know what that … thing is in his head," she said. "Cos it sure as hell ain't contemporary technology; not on Earth."

"I told you: it's an infospike," the young man replied a little impatiently.

"Yes, you did," Harkness agreed amiably. "You just forgot to explain what the hell _is_ an infospike. Aside from the obvious, I mean."

"It's a procedure that allows compressed information to be transferred directly into your brain, using these devices," the young man gestured towards his own forehead. "These devices are called infospike. There are two types of it. Type one allows you to interface with a single computer. Type two – the one I have – is the real infospike. It allows you to download any information from an entire archive, at any time."

Magambo looked at Harkness. "Ever heard of something like that?"

Harkness nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah; it will become a standard method of information exchange between humans and computers, eventually. Not for another two hundred millennia or so, though. I've heard about it while travelling with the Doctor, but never seen one in function – until now."

"But isn't it a high risk to use a device that opens your head and lays part of your brain free?" Jenny asked.

"It is," Harkness agreed, "which is why the technology was abandoned after less than a century of use. Besides, I don't think that it would be compatible with twenty-first century technology… _or_ with twenty-first century human biology. The repeated use of the infospike would burn out the brain of a contemporary human in a very short time."

"But not those of future humans?" Magambo tried to clarify.

Harkness shrugged. "_I wouldn't_ risk having something like that put into my head. Still; mankind _will_ continue to evolve in the next two hundred millennia. I assume that humans will change enough for such implants to be used without risking any damage. Our friend here, however, comes from the very near future. He's biologically the same as you are, Captain."

Magambo noticed that he didn't count himself, _or_ the girl, in the same category, but she found it better _not_ to ask the reason for it. Not _yet_ anyway.

"How comes he to have such an implant, then?" she asked instead.

"That's a very good question," Harkness nodded grimly. "Well, Adam? Care to tell us where you have your little toy from?"

"From a place called Satellite Five," the young man replied with a shrug. "I got chipped in one of their medical rooms. It was a completely painless procedure and took about ten minutes, with their advanced medical technology. They called it picosurgery."

The name Satellite Five said nothing to Magambo; it must have been a familiar one for Harkness, however, because he became deathly pale, and even his hands started shaking slightly.

"How did you get there… and _when_?" he asked hoarsely.

"As I already told the lady here: I was travelling with the Doctor," the young man said. "It was the year 200,000 if I remember correctly."

The girl shot an inquiring look at Harkness. "That was a hundred years before…?"

Harkness shook his head, recovering from his unpleasant surprise with impressive speed. "It doesn't matter, Jenny," then he looked at Adam. "Which Doctor?" he asked.

The young man looked at him with a frown. "Are there more of him?"

"In a way, yes," Harkness waved dismissively. "Don't worry your pretty head off about that. Just tell us which one was yours."

The young man shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? He looked forty-ish; short-cropped hair, long nose, big ears, blue eyes. Spoke with a Northern accent. Wore a black leather jacket all the time."

Harkness nodded. "I know that one. That was the one I used to travel with," looking at Magambo, he added. "The one who helped prevent the Slitheen invasion. The one before _yours_," he said to Jenny as an afterthought.

"How many were there anyway?" asked Magambo. "We have at least three other ones on file. Which one was the one I met?"

"The most recent one," Harkness replied promptly. "I've met him, too. If I'm not mistaken, there have been ten of them so far, and according to what I've heard, we can count on three more, unless something goes terribly wrong with him."

"Thirteen Doctors," Magambo mused. "And five of them worked with UNIT, one way or another, I understand. That would mean a lot of companions."

"Quite a few," Harkness agreed. "There were four of us, just around the previous one… well, five if we count our _friend_ here. He couldn't have been with the Doctor for long, though. Rose never mentioned him, and she would have, had he been a long-term companion."

He gave the young man a wary look. "I wonder what the reason might have been."

"We had a misunderstanding," the young man said evasively. "They dropped me off at home after my first trip."

"Must've been some misunderstanding," the girl commented dryly. "I'd risk an educated guess and say that it had something to do with the little door in his head."

"Yeah, me, too," Harkness nodded grimly. "The Doctor never approved of us, hairless little apes, playing with technology way beyond our horizon."

"_Apes_?" the girl repeated with a disapproving frown. "He calls you _apes_? That's quite… rude."

"He tends to be that; at least the two most recent ones did," Harkness replied with a shrug. "Comes from being old and powerful, I guess. Makes one a bit arrogant at times. He used to call me worse things than that. _Much_ worse, in fact."

His trademark blinding smile seemed forced when he said that. The girl must have noticed it, too, because she briefly touched his hand; it was a strangely reassuring gesture from somebody half his age and a third his size.

_Who the hell could she be?_ Magambo wondered. She couldn't have been related to him, there was absolutely no likeness between them, neither in looks nor in colouring. And though Captain Harkness was infamous for being a notorious flirt, Magambo doubted that he would hit on such a young girl.

Unless she was a lot older than she actually looked. Such things were known to happen.

Whatever kind of nonverbal communication was going on between the two of them, it only lasted a few moments. Then Harkness gave the girl a barely visible nod and turned back to the problem at hand.

"I think we both agree that the detail about the infospike should _not_ find its way into our report, Captain," he said to Magambo. "Cos if either Colonel Oduya or his colleagues at MI5 or MI6 or whatever other such organization learned about it, they'd throw this guy onto a lab table and dissect him to figure out what makes this thing tick."

"Can they do that?" the girl asked doubtfully.

"Dissect him?" Harkness clarified. "Yeah, in a minute. It's enough if they declare him a threat for national security, and whooom! He's already lost all his rights as a citizen… as a human being in fact," he looked at Magambo coolly. "Ain't that so, Captain?"

Magambo knew of course that he was hinting at the fate of Doctor Sato, their head scientist, but she refused to take the bait.

"The Geneva Convention is not eligible in such situations," she said simply.

"I didn't mean that," the girl said. "I meant: can they figure out how the infospike actually works? Reverse-engineer it for contemporary use?"

Harkness thought about that for a moment. "In theory? Yes. The concept isn't that complicated. They most likely wouldn't be able to reverse engineer it, though. Technology isn't advanced enough for that, and some elements of the metallic alloy likely aren't even of Terran origin. That fact won't help him, though, as he'd be very dead, right after they'd started operating on him."

"Which means he'd be better off with you," Magambo said. "But can you keep him under control?"

Harkness nodded with a darkly satisfied expression. "Oh, yeah, we can."

"Are you sure?" Magambo arched a sarcastic eyebrow. I'd hate to deal with another Cyberwoman incident or anything even vaguely similar. And this man-machine combo reminds me uncomfortably of that particular crisis."

Harkness stared at her in shock. Apparently, he hadn't expected her to know how one of his people – now his boss – had nearly ended the world out of misguided love. The girl noticed his reaction, too, because she frowned at Harkness.

"You had a _Cyberwoman_ incident?"

She must have been very new to Torchwood if she didn't know about it. Or he preferred not to inform their new hirelings about near-disastrous past mistakes. Although that would be foolish, and while Harkness was known to be a secretive bastard, he certainly wasn't a fool… most of the times anyway.

A moment later, Harkness recovered from his shock.

"Don't worry, Captain," he said. "Ianto might have fooled _me_; nobody can fool _Ianto_. Sometimes I think he can see the entire Hub simultaneously and spots the tiniest changes on a subconscious level."

"He does," the girl commented matter-of-factly. "Photographic memory, remember? Works best with things the person has seen or read."

"In any case," Harkness added, "nothing what's going on in the Hub escapes Ianto's attention. _Ever_. And since we're gonna keep this guy _within_ the Hub, at least for the time being, rest assured that he'll be safely contained."

"I'd suggest one of your picturesque detention cells," Magambo said. "If he could teleport into the sealed labs…"

"But he doesn't have his little personal teleport anymore," Harkness reminded her. "Which, by the way, I'd like to have when it's retrieved. Time-travelling devices are within Torchwood's jurisdiction; and even if they weren't, I wouldn't trust your new boss with them."

* * *

At that point Magambo reluctantly agreed with him, and so he promised to send the personal teleport over, as soon as they had managed to fish it out of the chute. Then she left in a hurry to get back to her actual task before anyone would miss her.

"All right," Jack said after the UNIT officer had left. "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."

"Me, too, but we can't exactly order pizza here," Jenny replied.

She was a little disappointed about that fact. Unlike the original Torchwood members, who had long gotten fed up with take-away meals and enjoyed greatly the home-made food Rhys and Emma regularly fed to them, she was still quite fond of pizza.

"Tell you what," Jack said. "I'll go out and get us something to eat, if you answer any possible calls in the meantime and keep a close eye on our… _guest_. And I mean a _very_ close eye, soldier," he added, deliberately trigging Jenny's ingrained military training.

Jenny nodded simply, her entire carriage changing in so subtle ways it was barely visible unless one knew what to look for. Yet she was clearly in military mode now.

"If he as much as blinks the wrong way: shoot him," Jack ordered. "I got the uncomfortable feeling that he ain't half as harmless as he looks. So, until we have proof otherwise, we'll consider him potentially dangerous… and not trustworthy."

"Yes, sir," Jenny replied crisply and pulled out a futuristic-looking gun from somewhere, aiming at Adam casually. "You heard the Captain, Pretty Boy. Be quiet and cooperative, and nothing's gonna happen to you. Try to cause trouble, and you'll experience all sorts of nasty surprises. Understood?"

The young man nodded mutely, and Jack left, satisfied that Jenny would be able to keep him contained. Hell, she would be able to contain a horde of Weevils on her own. Keeping one wayward time traveller under control was no real challenge for her. Besides, the guy was clearly scared out of his mind – and he seemed more afraid of Jenny than of Jack.

When he came back, almost half an hour alter, pizza boxes piled on one arm and an XXL banana shake in his other hand, Jenny was still sitting opposite Adam, her gun pointing at his head. That didn't hinder her in chatting to someone on the phone amiably. Her eyes, wary and observant, never left the young man's face, though.

"Here," Jack handed her the banana shake and she beamed like a kid in a candy shop. "You more than deserve it, for the company you had to keep."

"Thanks, Jack," she dropped her soldier mode completely, removed the lid from the huge plastic beaker, together with the drinking straw, and practically inhaled her banana shake without pausing for a breath. "I really needed this."

Jack shook his head in tolerant amusement. Sure, the Doctor had always been fond of bananas, but with Jenny, it was closer to addiction. In whatever form they came, she took them with relish. On the other hand, strictly seen she was still a child. She might have inherited the Doctor's DNA and his racial memory, but she'd only been alive a little longer than six years.

"You and your sweet tooth," he said teasingly.

"Bananas are good," Jenny replied, almost defensively. "They've got lots of stuff your body needs: sugar, calcium, vitamins and all that."

"Which is certainly _not_ the reason why you love them so much," Jack grinned. "All right, ready to eat something more substantial? I've got pizza – that's what you wanted, right?"

Jenny nodded enthusiastically. "What sort did you get?"

"Vegetarian, classic Margherita and double meat," Jack told her. "Which one do you want?"

"I'll take the veggie, thanks," Jenny grabbed the proffered cardboard box and tore it open. "God only knows what they put into the double meat one; and I'm not fond of basil."

"You've been talking to Tosh about food again, I see," Jack laughed.

He selected the Margherita for himself – the one with tomatoes, mozzarella and _lots_ of basil – and tossed the third box to Adam. The young man fell over the food without complaint; he must have been ravenous, by the way he gobbled up the slices, one after another.

"What was the last time you ate?" Jack asked.

Adam shrugged and swallowed hard before answering.

"Three… no, four days ago – unless snatching some salty peanuts from bar counters counts," he replied.

Jack's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Were you on the run?"

Adam nodded glumly. "I was careless. Risked to go to Cardiff, after my Mum threw me out. She was afraid of me, you see? Said I was a freak. Couldn't even bear having me in the same house."

Jack nodded in understanding. That must have been hard. Adam might be a greedy little idiot, but no-one deserved such treatment from their own mother. Not unless they'd committed some hideous crime, and he couldn't truly imagine Adam doing that.

Besides, he knew all too well what it was like considered being a freak by others.

"Why did you go to Cardiff?" he asked.

"Well," Adam hesitated, "I heard Rose and the doctor talking about the TARDIS needing to refuel there, at some sort of Rift. No idea what _that_ was supposed to be, but… I thought I'd wait, and if I'm lucky, he might return in my lifetime and take this thing out of my head. Or take me to someplace with the right technology to have it removed. I can't go on like this – do you know how often people snap with their fingers? I never realized before, either, but now… every time somebody does it, my head _opens_…"

"I wonder why my… why _the Doctor_ hadn't removed it before he'd throw you out of the TARDIS," Jenny said. "He usually doesn't like humans playing around with advanced alien tech, I'm told."

"He wanted to teach me a lesson, I guess," Adam muttered. "Some lesson! I've nearly got shot, lynched, beaten up or abducted to some dubious research lab to get sliced and dived more times than I care to count."

"Yet you escaped every time," Jack said, his suspicions reawakening.

Adam shot him a baleful look. "I've made a mistake, but I'm not an idiot, you know. When I was eight, I logged onto the US Defence System – nearly caused World War Three. And I've become quite good at running away in the meantime," he scowled. "Now that I've lost my teleport, it's gonna be a lot more complicated."

"Don't worry," Jack smiled thinly, knowing that it wasn't exactly a reassuring sight; in fact, he _counted_ on it. "We'll take good care of you."

"In one of your picturesque prison cells?" Adam commented sarcastically.

Jack shrugged. "It's up to you. You'll be safe in Cardiff; safer than anyone else on this planet. You can even make yourself useful if you're really as clever as you apparently think you are. And you can wait for the return of the Doctor there, if that's what you really want. But I wouldn't put my hopes high. He's a lot less merciful nowadays than he used to be. Believe me; I know what I'm talking about."

"Tosh believes something's gone wrong with his latest regeneration," Jenny commented a little doubtful.

Jack nodded grimly. "A _lot_ of things went wrong at his latest regeneration, I'd say. But this ain't the time _or_ the place to discuss such things. Who was on the phone right now?"

"It was Mickey," Jenny grinned. "He's on his way to fetch us; has already reached London, in fact."

Jack rolled his eyes. "I wonder how many speed limits he's broken _this_ time. Ianto's gonna need _weeks_ to smooth the ruffled feathers of the police again."

"He's used to it," Jenny laughed, "and in _one_ thing Mickey's right. The sooner we whisk Pretty Boy away from here the better."

"Why are you calling him Pretty Boy?" Jack asked, amused.

"Well, he _is_ a bit pretty, isn't it?" Jenny tilted her head to the side and eyed Adam's appearance critically. "What?" she then asked, seeing Jack's petrified expression.

"_A bit pretty,_ huh?" Jack repeated slowly. "That's a phrase your Dad liked to use, back when he was his former self."

"Did he?" Jenny asked, her eyes gleaming with unholy glee. "That's what he called _you_, then? _A bit pretty_?"

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous!" Jack returned indignantly. "He knew the difference between _a bit pretty_ and _devastatingly handsome_!"

"Oh, that's rich!" Jenny laughed. "I see now what Martha meant with you _fighting modesty_ all your life."

"Modesty is overrated," Jack declared. "Besides, if it's true, it ain't bragging, is it? What has Mickey said, when is he gonna be here?"

Jenny looked at her watch. "Another thirty, forty minutes."

"That's good. Let's hope we won't catch any unwanted attention till then."

* * *

Mickey must have driven like a madman, because he arrived barely twenty-five minutes later.

"Hey, Boss," he greeted Jack causally, before giving Jenny the high-five, "What's up? Ianto says the Red Berets have caught us a little bird. Is that him?"

Jack nodded. "Yep, that's him. Name's Adam Mitchell. Apparently, he used to travel with Rose and the Doctor – for a _very_ short time, before they'd pick up _me_."

"_Him_?" Mickey eyed the young man doubtfully. "He doesn't look like somebody the Doctor would pick up."

"He didn't want to, not at first," Adam confessed glumly. "Not until Rose would put in a good word for me."

"_Rose_ talked the Doctor into taking you with them?" Mickey was not so easy to convince. "Why would she do _that_? You're not really her type, not by far."

"Hey, I'd like you to know that we had a lot of fun at Mr Van Statten's base… or _will_ have anyway… unless I've already changed the timeline by telling you about it."

"Timelines are not _that_ easy to change," Jack said, "not until you actually _do_ something to alter known events. But we shouldn't discuss this here and now. Let's get back to Cardiff first. We'll have enough time to listen to the full story later."

"Stop dawdling, then, and get into the SUV," Mickey replied. "If we hurry up, we'll avoid the rush hour – barely! – and will be back in Cardiff like that."

He snapped with his fingers, and the infospike dutifully emerged from Adam's forehead, opening like the shutters of a tiny window. To his credit, Mickey eyed the slightly pulsing part of Adam's exposed brain with remarkable coolness.

"All right," he said, "now _that_'s something different. I'm getting the idea _why_ your time with the Doctor and Rose was such a short one."

Adam snapped his head closed and glared at Mickey in a rather unfriendly manner.

"And what would _you_ know about them?" he asked nastily.

"Oh, man, would you be surprised," Mickey replied with a dangerous little smile. "I travelled with the Doctor – with two different versions of him – for some time; and Rose had been _my_ girlfriend, before she'd meet the Doctor. So shut up and get in the car, so that we can blow this joint."

"Excellent conclusion," Jack agreed. "Let's go, kids."

"And please, try _not_ to snap with your fingers, at least until we're in the car," Adam added with a long-suffering sigh. "The joke's getting really old – not that it had been a good one to begin with."

* * *

The ride to Cardiff was a rather dull one, to say the least. Adam was sulking on the back seat, with Jenny keeping a close eye on him, while Jack was talking on the phone to Ianto, Tosh, and Detective Swanson in quick progression and Mickey drove the SUV in kamikaze-style. At least his reckless driving ensured that they did manage to avoid the rush hour indeed, got out of London before the traffic jam would block all important streets and got back to Cardiff in record time.

"We'll take the lift," Jack told the others as they reached Roald Dahl Plass. "It's faster that way; and it gives our guest less to learn about the Hub."

Besides, the invisible lift only worked for Torchwood personnel, due to the newest improvements. Intelligent circuitry did have its advantages.

Mickey nodded in agreement. "Good; I'm gonna take the SUV to the garage before the coppers spot me parking where I'm not supposed to. Jenny, you with me or with Captain America here?"

"I'll go with Jack," she said, "just in case Pretty Boy gets any stupid ideas."

They grouped on the slab, Jenny holding an iron grip on Adam's upper arm, which proved useful when the lift began to descend and the young man panicked immediately.

"Stop flailing or we'll all fall off and break our necks," she hissed at him. "_I_ certainly will break yours if you don't stand still."

Adam instantly froze for the rest of their descent. When they finally hit ground, he ad to be tugged off the slab. His legs were trembling as he looked up again, taking in the water tower, the walkways, and the upper levels arching high above his head.

"What's this?" he asked, with a slight tremor in his voice. "Batman's cave built in sewer chic?"

"This is our base of operations," Jack replied indignantly. "You better get used to it, cos this is gonna be your home for the foreseeable future. Probably for the rest of your life."

"You can't keep me here!" Adam was seriously panicking now.

"We can and we will," Jack told him bluntly. "It's as much for your own safety as it's four ours. How long, do you think, can you keep running and hiding before you get caught and dissected by somebody who wants to lay their hands on that little gizmo in your head? Unless your brain burns out before it happens, that is."

"Can't we send him back to his own time?" Jenny asked.

Jack shook his head. "Nah, too risky. We can't let him run around with a piece of 2001st century tech embedded in his skull. If it falls into the wrong hands… he trailed off, but Jenny understood his concern nonetheless.

"It won't be easy, though," she said. "Have you ever had any permanent residents here? Aside from the Weevils, that is?"

Jack nodded, his eyes darkening with unpleasant memories.

"Not since I took over, but in earlier times, yeah… I used to live on the lower levers for quite a while myself."

"_You_?" Jenny gasped in shock. Jack shrugged.

"It's a long and unpleasant story, but I'll tell you alter if you really want to hear it. Let's deal with this guy first… dammit, where _is_ he?"

While they'd been talking, Adam had drifted away a little, obviously fascinated by the various pieces of machinery lying everywhere. He was crouching down to examine a particularly exotic piece from closer proximity, when suddenly Ianto's head popped out from behind the concrete central column.

"We don't sniff the sub-aetheric resonator," he said with a bland smile, but there was a clear warning in his voice.

Adam jumped back nervously. "Sorry, I just…"

"Oh, do shut up!" Jack walked around the central column, finding it wide open and the Rift manipulator clearly visible inside. "Is something wrong with it?"

Ianto shook his head and wiped his hand on a rag. He was in shirtsleeves, wearing the waistcoat of his pinstriped suit but not the jacket; the sleeves of his purple shirt were rolled up.

"Just maintenance. The machinery needs to be cleaned from time to time as you know."

"A job, for which we have enough people here," Jack pointed out.

"People who can go out to investigate when a Rift alert comes in," Ianto returned. "Something I still cannot do."

The frustration in his voice was very obvious. One of the few perks of being the Torchwood Director was that he could choose freely how much he wanted to be involved with any given case, and he enjoyed that freedom. Unfortunately, his recent encounter with a hostile alien had caused some serious damage, from which he was still recovering. Slowly. _Very_ slowly.

Jack felt sorry for him, but there was nothing he could do to speed up the process. Ianto simply had to heel at his own pace, as fast as his body – and the nanogenes working busily to repair it – could manage.

"Give it time, Ianto," he murmured. "Neural damage is nothing you can joke with. It's a miracle that you're recovering as steadily as you are."

"I know," Ianto sighed, rubbing his bleary eyes with the heel of his hands tiredly. "But it's been _five weeks_, and I've barely improved at all. The cabin fewer is driving me crazy, Jack! If the bloody doctors would at least let me have some coffee, I could deal with this better, but I'm still not allowed to have any. Not before I'd completed physio and my fine motoric reactions reach their former level."

"Well, caffeine's a stimulant, and you know that stimulants can interfere with the healing process," Jack reminded him.

This was an argument they'd had at least once a day in the last five weeks. Ianto scowled, knowing that Jack was right but hating the fact nonetheless.

"And _you_ know what caffeine withdrawal could do to a person's overall well-being," he said, grabbing his cane to steady himself when his leg began to cramp. "God, I hate being an invalid!"

"You want me to knead that leg for you before we'd start debriefing our friend here?" Jack asked.

Ianto could do that for himself, of course – in fact, he was _supposed_ to do so, at least twice a day – but Jack's bigger hands were better suited to giving a massage. Besides, he _loved_ laying his hands on Ianto, even for purely medical reasons.

"That would be a godsend, thank you," Ianto confessed. "Then he looked at Jenny. "Take our… _guest_ to the interrogation room. Then check with Emma if his quarters have been prepared. Have you eaten in London?"

"We had pizza," Jenny beamed at him. "And Jack got me a banana shake. A really big one."

Ianto shook his head in fond exasperation. For a genetically engineered solider with the latent racial memory of the Time Lords in her head, she was really like a child when it came to the simple ways of life. It made her so endearing that one tended to forget that she'd been fighting space battles against hostile aliens for a considerable part of her short life. As much as Ianto had been prejudiced towards her at first – mostly because she was the Doctor's daughter – she'd won him over, piece by piece, since her arrival less than two months ago.

"Jack should know better than to feed your addiction," he said with a tired smile. His thigh was cramping again, and he began to knead it absently with his free hand. "God, I hate this…"

Jack gave him a worried look. "Let me take care of that. Jenny can deal with Adam in the meantime."

Ianto pressed his eyes tightly together for a moment.

"Very well. Debriefing in forty minutes."

~TBC~


	3. Chapter 3: The Tale of the Prodigal Son

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's note: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

The technobabble has been taken the TARDIS Wiki. I don't even pretend to understand it.

* * *

**Chapter 03 – The Tale of the Prodigal Son**

Jack took his time, not only to ease Ianto's cramping leg but also to give him a thorough back rub and to massage his stiff neck as well. With all the tension worked out of his sore muscles, Ianto felt two hundred per cent better afterwards. In fact, he felt like a large blob of gelatine – and extremely reluctant to leave the medical bay ever again, as long as Jack was in there with him.

However, that was something they couldn't afford just yet.

"We must go," he said reluctantly, accepting an unhurried kiss from Jack. "As much as I'd prefer to stay here with you."

"Trust me, the feeling is mutual," Jack murmured, kissing him again. They'd just recently become intimate again, and he'd have preferred to work a little more on that part of their still somewhat shaky relationship. "But we can't; not yet. Work comes first. Let's deal with this brat, and then I'll take you home."

Ianto shook his head, willing the tremor of his hand to still so that he could button his shirt. Jack's fingers itched to help him, but he knew that in _this_ case his help wouldn't be welcome. After his short moment of weakness after reawakening from the coma, Ianto had been adamant about coping with his condition on his own. The only help he'd accept was the massages, which they both enjoyed – Jack giving them and Ianto receiving them.

"I can't go home just yet, Jack," he said patiently. "My backlog of paperwork has nearly reached the level _you_ used to keep while I was incapacitated, and I've got a video conference with Sir Archibald later on."

"Cancel it," Jack suggested. "Archie can wait; it isn't so as if there were anything of interest in Glasgow, ewer. You need to rest. You've been on your feet since six a.m."

Ianto sighed. "I can'. Sir Archibald and our other associates are willing to deal with me because I'm _reliable_. I can't afford to l lose that advantage."

"I never needed anything like that," Jack said with a shrug.

"Yeah, but you're an immortal time traveller from the 51st century who used to travel with the Doctor," Ianto pointed out. "I'm none of those things, so I have to win their acceptance in other ways," he grabbed his cane. "Let's go. Time to hear the story of our visitor."

* * *

Adam had been waiting in the bleak, dimly lit room for almost an hour. They'd left him alone, but he was sure that someone was watching him through the window high above his head. They'd placed a glass of water before him and that was it. He was left to his own devices, to cook in his own juices until they decided to pay him attention again.

Adam was no fool. He understood the intention behind the seemingly casual treatment. They wanted him to worry about his future; to make him more cooperative.

They were doing a lousy job of it, quite frankly.

The idea hadn't been a bad one _per se_. On anyone else, it might even have worked, cos hey! Secret underground base rum by a shady organization that answered to the Crown alone? Unlike most people, Adam actually had a fairly good concept of what Torchwood actually stood for. Mr. Van Statten liked to keep tab on everyone he saw as possible competition, and a secret British government agency dedicated to fight alien threats and confiscate every piece of alien tech they got across definitely fell into _that_ category. Torchwood Three might be flying under his radar, but Torchwood London certainly hadn't.

Unfortunately for the Torchwood gang, Adam had also learned the true meaning of fear while working for Mr. Van Statten. Working with the ever-present chance of getting completely mind-wiped and set out somewhere on the street like a stray puppy just couldn't be compared with the mundane threat of being imprisoned in Torchwood's "dungeon", as the UNIT captain had called it.

It was probably just some subterranean prison cell anyway. One could always escape from a prison cell. Especially someone with Adam's genius-level intelligence and unparalleled computer skills. All he had to do was to bid his time. At first they'd be watchful; they'd be watching his every move seven/twenty-one. The surveillance equipment – what little he'd seen it so far – seemed _extremely_ advanced, but there hadn't been a computer he couldn't have outsmarted so far. His time would come.

His increasingly confident thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door. He expected to se the captain in the outdated military coat and/or the tough blonde girl, but he was apparently mistaken. Instead of them, in walked the tall young bloke who'd warned him away from that strange piece of alien tech – what had he called it? a sub-aetheric resonator? – wearing a sharp, three-piece pinstriped suit, an aubergine dress shirt with a navy blue tie that had diagonal white stripes and dress shoes.

The bloke walked with the help of one of those lightweight metal canes. He was accompanied by an even younger, strawberry blond woman with the delicate face of a porcelain doll, in an old-fashioned, turquoise pencil shirt with a jacket that seemed to have an exaggerated shoulder partie – very 1950s, Adam decided – a silk blouse of matching colour and moderately high heels. She was also carrying a thick manila folder in one hand and an up-to-date PDA-device in the other one.

"Well, Mr… Mitchell, was it the name?" the overdressed bloke asked, and Adam nodded. "Mr. Mitchell, my name is Ianto Jones. I'm the director of the Torchwood Institute. This is Ms Cowell-Williams, my personal assistant."

"Charmed," Adam muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Great! A paper pusher has come to interrogate him. That was going to be fun – not! And the pretty secretary was already taken, it seemed. To some fat and stupid Welsh guy, no doubt. It wasn't fair.

"Actually, I'm sure that you aren't," Director Jones replied with a thin smile, "and frankly, neither are we. But temporally displaced people fall under our jurisdiction, so for better or worse, we'll have to deal with you. For my part, I expect the worse," he added coldly, "considering your short career as the Doctor's companion."

"You have a problem with ex-companions?" Adam asked in surprise. Considering that several of them seemed to work for Torchwood, he found that a little strange.

"No," Director Jones answered blandly. "I have a problem with the Doctor. A very personal one," he turned to his secretary. "What have you found?"

The pretty blonde opened the folder and rattled down the basic facts of Adam's entire life – in much greater depth than Adam would have thought it possible. _Everything_ was noted there, from the name of his first (and so far only) dog to that of his primary school teacher. From his father's arthritis to the tests the shrinks had made to certify his genius-level intelligence. The names and professional reputation of said shrinks. The girls he'd dated through secondary school and university and so on.

The only things missing were the years he'd spent working for _GeoComTex_ and his short sojourn with the Doctor.

"To break into the system of _GeoComTex_ we'd need someone with Tosh's skills," the secretary said apologetically. Director Jones waved off her concerns.

"That's not necessary, Emma. If anything of interest happened there, we have other methods to find it out. And he really hacked into the US Department of Defence computers at the age of eight? That wasn't just bragging?"

Emma checked her data. "Apparently not. I've got the corresponding document from the Home Office here… well, the copies anyway. The little brat didn't exaggerate; he'd really almost caused World War III."

Adam shrugged. "It's not my fault that I was born smart."

The Torchwood director ignored him. "What else?" he asked his PA.

Emma studied her papers. "Well, apparently he won a competition arranged by a certain Henry Van Statten, the founder and owner of _GeoComTex_ when he was only fourteen. That must have been how he caught Mr. Van Statten's eye in the first place, so he got hired by _GeoComTex_ when he finished university at the age of twenty."

"Twenty?" Director Jones raised and eyebrow. "At what age did he start?"

"Sixteen, it seems," Emma fished a sheet out of the many and handed it to her boss. From the corner of his eye Adam saw that it was a copy of his university records. "He studied computer sciences at CalTech, in the States, with the help of a scholarship sponsored by the same Mr. Van Statten."

"Must have made a lasting impression on the man," Director Jones said dryly. "What kind of competition was it he won as a kid and how did he win it?"

"By writing an essay on _Why I Want To Meet An Alien?_," Emma selected another sheet – clearly a copy of said essay – and handed it to Mr. Jones who read it with impressive speed.

"It focuses on acquiring advanced knowledge from visiting aliens, I see," he commented dryly. "He considers it a _shortcut_, in his own words, not _cheating_. He'd have fit in with Torchwood London wonderfully, with this attitude of his," he gave back both sheets and aimed those piercing, icy blue-grey eyes at Adam. "So, what exactly _did_ you do for Mr. Van Statten, Mr. Mitchell? Cos I doubt you'd be doing any serious research."

"No," Adam admitted. "I'd have liked to, but he never took me seriously. I was just _the English kid_ for him. My job was to find extraterrestrial artefacts for him, buy them on the covert online auctions of the black market and then get them catalogued in the Vault before the scientists would take over. Sometimes I got to play with small pieces, poke at them, try to figure out what they were for, but not all too often."

"Sounds dull," Director Jones commented. "So, how did you end up travelling with the Doctor?"

"Well, he landed with that blue box of his in the middle of the Vault," Adam explained. "It caused quite the uproar as you can image. Security was beside themselves how he could break through all the barriers."

"Which he didn't," Director Jones said. "The TARDIS doesn't work that way. But why would the Doctor go to Mr. Van Statten's Vault?"

"He said the Metaltron had called him," Adam shrugged. "It had sent out a distress call, it seems, and the Doctor supposedly followed it."

"The _Metaltron_?" the frown lines deepened on the Torchwood Director's forehead. Adam shrugged again.

"That's what the scientists called it. Basically, it was a big chunk of alien tech; rather ridiculous-looking, too, like a big pepper pot. Only that it was somehow alive in the inside – and heavily armed."

He had the unexpected satisfaction of seeing Director Jones go stark white; the man's hands started to tremble uncontrollably.

"You had a _Dalek_ in that Vault of yours?"

"Adam nodded. "Mr. Van Statten bought it at a private auction after it had been moved from one collection to another for nearly fifty years, before my time. According to the records it came from the sky like a meteorite. It fell to Earth on the Ascension Islands – burnt in its crater for nearly three days before anybody could get near it. It was… damaged somehow, but when Rose touched it, the thing extrapolated her genetic material and the creature inside initiated cellular reconstruction."

Director Jones closed his eyes for a moment. "She _touched_ it – and by doing so, she enabled it to heal… to repair itself. Wonderful."

"Not so wonderful, actually," Adam replied. "In the next moment, it broke out of its cell and basically massacred everyone in the Vault before the Doctor stopped it. Well, _almost_ everyone. Diana Goddard, one of Mr. Van Statten's assistants, survived with a handful of people, and so did I, obviously."

"How did the Doctor stop the Dalek?" Director Jones asked doubtfully. "Those things are not easily stopped."

"By telling it that it was infested by Rose's DNA and basically arguing it into self-destruction," Adam explained. "He wanted to kill it with a makeshift weapon but Rose didn't let him."

Director Jones muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _stupid git_. Adam was mildly insulted on Rose's behalf, but found it better not to argue.

"What happened – _will happen_ – to Van Statten?" Jones then asked.

Adam shrugged indifferently.

"After the disaster, during which his only concern seemed to be to recapture the Dalek undamaged, Diana Goddard took charge of the company. _Will _take care of it," he corrected himself with a grimace. Time travel could really play havoc with one's tenses. "She ordered Mr. Van Statten to be mind-wiped and set out on the street somewhere, just as he'd done with employees he wasn't satisfied with."

"Charming," Director Jones said in an extremely dry tone. "That still doesn't explain how you ended up travelling with the Doctor, though."

"Rose asked him to take me along with them in the TARDIS," Adam explained. "I'd told her earlier that I always wanted to see the stars. To stand out in space, looking down at Earth. To know what real life was like, out there. To travel so quickly, I was everywhere at once…" he trailed off, not realizing that his eyes had become misty and his voice heavy with nostalgia.

The Torchwood director apparently did, though.

"There's nothing wrong with _that_," he said in a slightly friendlier tone. "I reckon the trip in the TARDIS was like a childhood ream come true. Why would he kick you out so soon, though? Is Mickey right? Was it because of that piece of tech in your head?"

Adam nodded reluctantly. "We visited Satellite Five, one of Earth's orbital stations, in the year 200.000. It was during the time of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire – and it was overwhelming! You can't even _begin_ to imagine the wealth of information and technology available to anyone. It was as if all my Christmases had come together."

"And so you decided to get access to it."

It was not a question. It was a logical conclusion, but Adam nodded nonetheless.

"Yes; but I realized soon enough that only those with an implant could access the data."

"So you get your own implant," Jones concluded. "Was such a thing for free, for everyone?" he clearly doubted that.

"Of course not," Adam snorted. "In fact, the top-of-the-line version – the ones like mine – cost a fortune. But I had this paper from the Doctor, the one that could fool people…"

"Psychic paper," Jones nodded, obviously familiar with it. "You used it to fake a credit card and so get your computer interface port installed."

"Infospike," Adam corrected. "It's really incredible, you know. You can download ungodly amounts of information right into your brain within seconds."

"And get your brains fired like an egg on a plasma vent, or so Jack says," Director Jones commented dryly. "I assume the Doctor was not happy with your acquiring two thousandth century technology. Was that why he kicked you out?"

"Erm… not exactly," Adam considered lying but decided against it. These people might have a way to contact the Doctor, and then he'd be in even more trouble. "I… erm… to transmit information back to the twenty-first century, using Rose's superphone. Spoke it onto my Mum's answering machine, in fact."

"Oh, my!" Jones' expression was an interesting study of amusement mixed with exasperation mixed with pity. "Reckon that went down _really_ well with the Doctor, considering his low opinion of the human race and all. Which kinda raises the question why he'd tend to choose human companions so often," he added thoughtfully, "but that's another topic for another time. I take he was furious with you."

"That's an understatement," Adam admitted. "He dropped me off at my Mum's faster than I could realize what was happening and destroyed the answering machine with the information I'd downloaded. Then he abandoned me."

"That's something he apparently does frequently," Jones said wryly. "You're in good company; only the others didn't deserve it. What about Rose, though? She'd been the one who wanted you to go with them – didn't she put in a word for you?"

Adam shook his head. "No; actually, she was more or less gloating about how she was the only company the doctor needed. Which, considering how she'd originally enabled the Dalek to escape was a little unfair if you ask me."

"I don't," the Torchwood director said bluntly. "But Rose had, as far as I can put the picture together from what the others told me, always been a condescending little cow who was never bothered with the possible consequences of her actions."

"And yet the Doctor kept _her_ with him and kicked _me_ out," Adam noted bitterly. "She got two hundred of our staff massacred because she couldn't keep her hands off the Dalek. I only wanted to gain a little from the information in my head. How is _that_ fair?"

"Unfortunately, sometimes even the smartest men fell for dumb blondes," Jones glanced at his PA. "Present company excluded, of course."

"Of course," Emma replied amiably. "We both know that I'm _not_ dumb. And neither is Jenny, Sally, Doctor Lloyd or Doctor McKay, hair colour notwithstanding. You, however," she turned to Adam. "may have the brain of a genius, but you still manage to be incredibly dumb. Don't you realize that by introducing that info in your head to the twenty-first century you could have changed the future?"

"It would have made a _better_ future!" Adam snapped.

"Perhaps," she allowed neutrally, "although there is no proof for that. In any case, it wasn't your right to play God. It wasn't your right to decide about the lives of us all."

"Ain't that what politicians are doing all the time?" Adam returned, a little indignantly. "And they _are_ dumb."

"Exactly," Emma said. "_You're_ supposed to be a genius. You ought to do better than them."

Adam didn't like being lectured by a little secretary but wisely chose to shut up – for now.

"So, what's gonna happen to me?" he asked. "Are you truly shutting me away in a stinking cell for the rest of my life?"

"For the rest of your life? No. Till 2013? Yes," Director Jones replied. "You've crossed your own timeline, and I don't have to explain you how dangerous _that_ can be, have I?"

Adam shook his head glumly.

"In fact, this is the only place where you'll be reasonably safe," Jones continued. "The Rift creates some sort of time bubble around the Hub, or so our scientists tell me. You can sit out the situation here till 2013, in which time you'll merge with your former self, keeping the memories of both versions."

"But that's gonna take _years_!" Adam protested. "I can't rot in one of your prison cells all the time."

"You can; and you _will_, if you choose to be uncooperative," there was a faint edge of threat in Jones' mellow voice. "We can't allow you out of the Hub, for obvious reasons, save for special occasions. But you don't have to waste your time here. We've got an immense amount of alien artefacts here that need to be labelled and catalogues and not enough people to do it. You could make yourself useful."

"You'd trust me around alien tech?" Adam asked doubtfully.

"With proper supervision – why not?" Jones replied with an elegant shrug. Then he grabbed his cane and rose. "You'll be given a thorough physical, Mr. Mitchell, and after that you'll be shown to your temporary quarters to settle in."

"You mean my cell," Adam said bitterly. Jones shrugged again.

"It depends on your interpretation. Rest assured that Jack used to live in a much smaller space for years, and he was already the head of the Cardiff branch by then," he glanced at Emma. "Please, take Mr. Mitchell to the medical area. Mickey will later show him to his quarters."

* * *

"So, what's the plan?" Tosh asked Ianto half an hour later. "Who's gonna work with the boy?"

The leading triumvirate of Torchwood Three – plus their general support officer – had relocated to the small dining room, newly established next to Ianto's office by some creative rearrangement of the available space, enjoying their first cooked meal of the day, courtesy of said general support officer. It was Rhys' new and advanced recipe of spaghetti alla carbonara, with three different sorts of ham and a new version of cheese sauce, with a spicy salad and, sadly, grape juice instead of wine, as almost all of them had to drive yet on that evening.

Ianto, using his napkin as a bib as was his wont, swallowed carefully and wiped his mouth before answering.

"I can't make him work with Jeannie, as practical as it would be to put him on the night shift," he said. "Would that thing in his head unexpectedly appear, it would freak Jeannie out. She's still not stable enough to deal with that kind of shock."

"True," Tosh agreed, "and Trevor wouldn't react well to our young friend's _I can't help being a genius_ attitude. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. They'd kill each other within the first week."

"My money would be on Trevor," Rhys commented, grinning. He genuinely liked the nerdy Englishman. Especially his awkward courtship to Tosh. Rhys found it sweet.

"And I'm seriously tempted to help him," Ianto admitted tiredly. "The guy rubs me the worst way. But he _could_ be useful; if only we could put that sharp mind of his to good use."

"That leaves me, then," Tosh wasn't very happy about that but accepted the inevitable. "Somehow I always end up with the brats; I wonder why."

"Cos I can trust you with them; more than I trust Jack or myself," Ianto replied. "Is it really that hard with Jenny?"

"Not _bad_; you know that I like her," Tosh sighed. "But it's not easy to share living space with her. She's a handful, just like her father; with the addition of being very young and… and _bouncy_. She makes me feel so _old_ sometimes! And then there's the whole banana thing…"

The three men grinned in unison. Tosh was allergic to bananas – they made her throw up – so she avoided them whenever she could, while Jenny couldn't get enough of them. That could make sharing a flat – especially a kitchen – complicated sometimes.

"We could take her in, at least from time to time," Rhys offered. "She and Emma get along splendidly."

But Tosh shook her head.

"No, I don't want her to move out; I owe the Doctor, _my_ Doctor, to take care of his kid. Besides, you're still newly wed, you and Emma. You need your privacy. God knows you spend more than enough time in here."

"At least you can talk about _your_ Doctor with Adam, too," Jack suggested. "He used to travel with the same one, after all; even if his time was considerably shorter than yours. In fact, I think you're the one who'd been the longest with him in his previous regeneration."

"True; but I'm not sure I want to share my memories with a spoiled brat, genius or not," Tosh replied coldly. "I'll keep him in his reins, though, if that's what you want. It's gonna be a bloody long time 'till 2013, I'm afraid."

"So am I," Ianto pulled a face. "Especially as we can't let him out of the Hub; at least not during daytime, and in the night it would be easier for him to give us the slip."

"Can't we put one of those ankle bracelets on him?" Rhys asked. "You know, like in those movies where the bad guys are tracked by the police through those things."

Tosh shook her head. "If he's really used to handle alien tech, he'll remove it in five seconds."

"Do you have a better idea?" Jack asked.

"Subcutaneous implants," Ianto answered promptly in Tosh's stead. "Set deeply enough so he couldn't pick it out with a pair of nail scissors or whatnot."

"You wanna chip him like a dog?" Rhys was visibly shocked.

Ianto shrugged. "We can't risk letting him escape. Imagine somebody clicking their fingers near him – he'd be in some secret military lab in no time, and he doesn't strike me as someone who could keep his mouth shut under pressure. I don't want the military – _or_ the government, for that matter – learn _anything_ about the near future. The entire timeline could be contaminated beyond repair. The ramifications are well beyond the worst I could even imagine; and I do have a rather vivid imagination."

"Can't we remove that… that spike thing then?" Rhys insisted.

Jack rolled his eyes. "That thing in his head is two thousandth century technology. That answers your question?"

"Kinda," Rhys rose and collected the empty dishes. "Well, if that's all, I'm filling the dishwasher and then taking Emma home. Any objections?"

Ianto made vague shooing gestures with his hand.

"No, go home. You're running on overtime already; _unpaid_ overtime, if I may add."

"Ain't we all, all the time?" Rhys commented philosophically and left.

Ianto touched his earpiece. "Owen? How far have you come with the physical of our guest?"

"Almost done," the voice of their chief medic answered. "He's a fucking prima donna, though. More afraid of needless than Harkness, and that's saying a lot. And I haven't even stabbed him with anything yet."

"Too bad," Ianto said coldly. "I want him chipped, so that we can always know where he is. I had Sally modify one of the chips we usually give the Weevils; I want it deep enough, so he won't be able to pick it out on his own."

"You'll get it," Owen replied and disconnected.

* * *

At first sight Adam didn't find the medical area of Torchwood Three very impressive. For starters, it adjoined the autopsy bay, which didn't necessarily fill one with trust towards the local medics. It was fairly small, too. Only the remarkable variety of alien medical instruments made the place moderately interesting.

The head medic of the base was a thin, wiry, weasel-faced man with dark hair, a London accent and the lousiest bedside manner Adam had ever seen. He had to admit, though, that Dr. Harper, whom the others simply called Owen, was highly efficient at his job. In less than an hour, he performed dozens of different tests, using strange-looking – obviously extraterrestrial – tools, from x-rays though brain scans, collected tissue- and DNA-samples (which he handed over to a tall blonde by the name of Lloyd), had Adam weighed and measured and thoroughly interrogated about his medical history.

The only thing he _hadn't_ done was a simple blood test.

"It's for your own good," he explained bluntly. "I'm a dry alcoholic; and while I've been therapied within an inch of my life and I'm _almost_ back to my old self, my hand isn't steady enough to find a vein. Not anymore. The blood test will have to wait till Milligan comes in in the morning."

He turned to the sweet-faced, blonde technician who brought him something that was too small for Adam to recognize; then he tossed a small glass beaker to his patient.

"Piss into this," he ordered. "We'll have to test you for any possible bacterial infection."

"You know, you could be a bit more reassuring towards your patients," Adam commented on his way to the washroom. The doctor snorted.

"_My_ patients are usually dead and don't complain," he said. "I prefer them that way. The living ones are Milligan's responsibility; he's the one who does the hand-holding, too," someone must have spoken to him through his earpiece because he suddenly fell silent. "Yeah, I got it," he then said. "Don't shit your pants, Teaboy, I'll deal with this."

He turned back to Adam, who'd just finished providing the obligatory urine sample. "Gimme your arm!"

Adam involuntarily backed off at the sight of the XXL-sized injector.

"I thought your hands aren't steady enough for blood work."

"They ain't," the doctor agreed, "but I'm still capable of placing a subcutaneous implant. Now, shut up and hold still!"

He grabbed Adam's wrist, pressed the injector to his upper arm, right under the hem of his shirt sleeve and pushed the button. In the next moment, there was a hiss and something went through Adam's skin, smoothly and with high speed. It hurt a little, but not overly so; certainly a lot less than an actual needle would have.

"What was that?" he asked.

"A tracking chip; with its help the system will monitor you all the time," the doctor replied. "And don't bother trying to remove it – you won't be able to do so without serious self-mutilation." He touched his earpiece. "Mickey, I'm done here. Come and store him away."

The young black man who'd driven them from London to Cardiff came almost immediately. To Adam's utter shock he was wearing a leather apron bound before his clothes, and that apron was definitely soiled with blood in several places. He caught Adam staring at him in open-mouthed horror and grinned.

"Sorry for that," he said. "I've just fed some of the other residents; they're not so fond of cooked meals. Come with me!"

Adam was too terrified to ask who _the other residents_ would be and followed him obediently, out of the main Hub area and down a series of tunnels that were lit by a string of fluorescent lights lining the ceiling. After a while, Mickey Toshiko took the left hand tunnel where several doors appeared on either side. He opened the first one and Adam could peer into a room that seemed way too small to spend the next couple of years in.

"This is one of the rooms we use to sleep in whenever we have to spend the night in the Hub," Mickey explained as he flicked on the light.

At the second look, the room seemed even less promising, if that was possible at all. A single bunk was against one wall and a small table was beside it… and that was basically it.

"It's temporary only," Mickey added. "We do have bigger rooms, but they ain't furnished yet. Ianto said you'll get one of them as soon as they're finished, but until then, this has to do."

Adam nodded resonantly and looked around with obvious disgust. "And this is different from a prison cell – how exactly?"

Mickey shrugged. "Well, for starters you ain't confined to it all the time. You'll work with us and eat with us and can move around the Hub freely; save fort he Archives, of course, but those are restricted, even for the rest of us."

"I'm just not allowed to leave this place at all," Adam groused.

Mickey gave him a less than sympathetic look.

"Nope, you ain't," he agreed. "Learn to live with it, cos it ain't going to change any time soon. Besides, there are worse places on this planet. Now, the showers are just around the corner if you want to clean up first."

Adam drew his breath in at the thought of the feeling of being completely clean. He couldn't even remember the time he last had a long, hot shower, and he definitely didn't want to sleep in the clothes he'd been in for longer than he cared to count.

"Yeah, I'd like that," he admitted.

"Good, I'll show you where they are," Mickey said. "Fresh towels are laid out there, and so are toiletries, but do you have any change clothes?"

Adam shook his head mutely. That was another problem he's avoided to contemplate so far. Mickey gave him the once-over thoughtfully.

"You seem to be about the same size as Trevor," he judged. "He usually keeps some changes in his locker. I'll ask him if you could borrow some of his stuff until we get you something else to wear. Come now."

He gestured Adam to follow him, showing the way to the large communal shower room, which had an almost startling resemblance to the changing rooms of Adam's old school, with it white tiles, the steal showerheads jutting along one wall at regular intervals, separated by nothing but waist high walls. There were some proper cubicles at the end, too, but the symbols on their doors marked them for female use only.

Along the other walls stood basins, each with a mirror and a shelf of its own, and there was a bench in the middle of the room, with half a dozen freshly laundered and neatly folded towels laid out for anyone's use. Various toiletries stood on an open shelf in the corner, and a clear sign showed the way to the toilets.

"It's not very modern, but at least we've got enough hot water for everyone," Mickey explained. "I'll give you half an hour – that will give me the chance to finish the feeding – and then I'll come and bring you some clothes. "

With that, he left, leaving Adam alone in the shower room – although Adam suspected that there would be some sort of surveillance device hidden in there. He didn't care. The chance of a hot shower was too good to care for such unimportant things as modesty.

He moved to one of the showers and started undoing the buttons on his shirt. Escape plans – despite the tracking chip they injected under his skin, he didn't give up on them – could wait. Shower and rest, and probably a hot meal were more important at the moment.

~TBC~


	4. Chapter 4: Discussing Timelines

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's note: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

I don't even pretend to understand the semi-science of the Whoniverse. I'm making all this up as I go – as long as it works for the story. Also, the backgrounds of Archie and Colonel Oduya are completely my doing.

* * *

**Chapter 04 – Discussing Timelines**

After the shared dinner of the Torchwood leaders Rhys left for home, taking Emma with him. So did Mickey, having finished feeding the inmates – including Adam, who got the leftovers and seemed happy enough with them.

"Hunger is the best cook," Ianto commented. "We need to integrate him better than that, though."

"What for?" Jack asked with a shrug. Ianto rolled his eyes.

"He'll be living with us for _years_, for God's sake! Do you want to watch out for a resentful prisoner falling into our backs all the time? I prefer to have here someone who's _useful_ – and enjoys being so."

"He'll definitely need a bigger room," Tosh said thoughtfully. "With at least a wash-basin in it, so that he won't have to jog down the corridor to the shower room every time he wants a glass of water or needs to wash his hands. A desk, too; perhaps a little fridge, for snacks and soft drinks."

"Why don't we get him a telly, too?" Jack suggested. "Against boredom; he can't work all day."

"No need for that," Tosh said. "A laptop will be enough. He can watch TW on the screen and even do something creative in his spare time."

"Make sure he'll be kept out of Mainframe, though," Ianto warned. "And instruct her to keep watch on his internet traffic. I don't trust his sincerity – not yet."

"And I doubt that I ever will," Jack said grimly. "That stunt he pulled – he could have changed the future, destroyed everything we know."

Trevor, who'd just been debriefed about the recent events, having come in for the night shift, frowned.

"Don't be so dramatic, Captain, that doesn't work backwards."

"Usually, it doesn't," Tosh agreed. "But you must consider the fact that Jack comes from the fifty-first century. Any changes between our time and his would have influenced his life greatly. His colony on Boeshane Peninsula might never be founded. He might not even be born; or born to a very different person, leading a different life. And considering his important role in the shaping of Torchwood Three for a century and a half, this branch would have developed differently, too. I may still be rotting in that UNIT prison, you'd be bored to death in some office, and Ianto… had Canary Wharf happened in that changed timeline, too, who knows where Ianto would be now?"

"Dead, most likely," Ianto said. "I'd have lost Lisa much earlier without the facilities here that helped to keep her alive… _alive_ being relative, of course. And so early on after Canary Wharf, I wouldn't have wanted to live without her," he gave Jack the ghost of a smile. "Not without somebody giving me the reason to do so."

They were treated to the extremely rare sight of Jack being stunned speechless but all pretended not to notice it.

"Still, everyone deserves a second chance," Lloyd, who'd just emerged from her lab, ready to leave, said. "Yes, the boy acted irresponsibly and stupidly, but he was also punished for it with a cruelty I wouldn't want on anyone. Let's hope he's learned from it, and we can use his talent."

"What talent?" Jack asked. "Everyone with two brain cells firing at the same time can catalogue and label artefacts. Even alien ones, as long as it isn't required to recognize them for what they are."

"That's not what I meant," Lloyd said. "He spoke about a black market for alien artefacts, correct? One that would hold online auctions."

"So what?" Jack shrugged. "We know it exists. We even get things through eBay sometimes."

"Yes, but we don't watch the market continually," Ianto said. "I think Lloyd is on something here. Adam knows the market better than anyone from us. We can have him monitoring it; and if something shows up that better shouldn't get into the wrong hands, we can step in and take it in time. I don't want a Dalek end up in private hands ever again."

"Neither do I," Jack agreed. "I'd like to know how the one Van Statten had – well, still _has_ at the moment – got to Earth in the first place, though."

"The Doctor never told you?" Tosh asked in surprise.

Jack shook his head. "He never told me much about _anything_. I wasn't his first choice as a companion, you see. And for some reason Rose never spoke of this incident – or about Adam – either."

"Considering the stupidity of her actions it isn't really surprising," Ianto commented dryly. "But perhaps she told _Mickey_ something. He used to be her boyfriend, after all, and he worshipped the ground she walked on. She could be reasonably sure that he wouldn't judge her. Not back then anyway."

"It's worth a try," Tosh agreed. "Jack, you should talk to him man to man; or ex-companion to ex-companion. You're the one who's travelled with him and Rose in the TARDIS; he'll probably tell you."

"Speaking of the Dalek, there's another thing we may need to consider," Lloyd said. "We know it will awaken in a couple of years and massacre two hundred or so people. We also know that it's gonna be destroyed shortly thereafter, so the only changes that would come from the incident would be the ones in the management of _GeoComTex_. Are we just gonna lean back and let it happen?"

"What's more, are we just gonna let Canary Wharf happen?" Trevor asked. "I was there when Mickey accidentally opened that Void Ship by a single touch, releasing thousands of imprisoned Daleks – apparently the same way Rose had woke up the one in Van Statten's collection. We could save hundreds of lives… starting with that of Doctor Singh," he added with a quick glance in Tosh's direction.

"I'm afraid it isn't that easy," Jack said. "Van Statten's Dalek was an isolated incident; the fact that it reacted to Rose's touch has no real significance for what's happened at Canary Wharf. Yes, the outcome of that battle was horrible, but can you tell me that if we'd taken the Daleks out of the equation it would have truly helped? The Cybermen were in every house, all over Earth; did they not have to fight the Daleks first, the carnage might have been a lot worse."

"Besides," Tosh added, "what happened at Canary Wharf had shaped the future too much to risk tampering with it. The Doctor told me that certain events are fixed in time and must not be changed, or the outcome would be catastrophic."

"She's right," Ianto said grimly. "As much as I'd like to save our friends and colleagues from One, tampering with those events is something we cannot, must not do."

"Perhaps not," Lloyd still didn't seem convinced. "But does it also mean that we can't try to save all those people at _GeoComTex_? Jack says it was an isolated incident."

"Yet one with Rose as the key figure where the Dalek was concerned," Jack returned. "Just like at Canary Wharf. Just like on Satellite V, during the big showdown with the Daleks. No. We can't take that risk; or the risk of Van Statten continuing as he was doing things – as he still _is_ doing things right now."

"Can you tell me for sure that this Goddard woman would be any better?" Lloyd asked doubtfully.

"No," Jack admitted. "But we know it _will_ happen this way. And I happen to know that _Goddard Enterprises_ will become the leading company for computing products in the twenty-second and twenty-third centuries. With a seat in Utah, they'll develop the first worldwide information system – sort of a global network that will combine the best characteristics of television and the internet, just on a much higher technology level, and own the entire electronics market for more than two centuries. The next phase of space exploration will be based on the technology they will develop. So no, we can't afford to tamper with _anything_ related to them."

"Jack's right," Tosh said quietly. "It's so very hard to watch terrible things happen when we might have the chance to prevent them, but we must. The risk of causing much greater harm is simply too grave."

They remained in unhappy silence, until Sally Jacobs came up the stars leading to the main working area with a frown.

"Ianto, everything's been prepared for your video conference with Sir Archibald," she reminded him. "He's already in position and waiting. You said twenty-fifteen. It's twenty-fourteen now; you'll be late."

Ianto sighed and grabbed his cane. "Tell him I'll be there in a moment," he rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "God, I need coffee the worst way…"

"What you need is _sleep_," Jack corrected. "Want me to join you in the conference? Archie can be really long-winded sometimes, but I know how to make him get to the point."

Ianto shook his head. "I doubt that you could fake any interest for the digital cataloguing of the archives in Torchwood House. And any distraction from your side would only make this meeting longer. I can deal with Sir Archibald. You could deal with some of the paperwork for me in the meantime."

Jack pulled a face, but as he watched Ianto hobble over to the conference room, he grudgingly admitted that at the moment dealing with the accumulated paperwork would be the best way to help. With great reluctance, he went to the office, slumped onto the chair behind the desk and pulled the closest heap of papers before himself. He was empowered to sign a lot of thins for Ianto – and so was Tosh, but she was too busy with research most of the time to deal with administrative stuff – and sitting behind the desk and dealing with paperwork (and _hating_ it!) was a bit like in old times.

* * *

For a supposedly decadent nobleman in his late forties, Sir Archibald McAllister, the leader of Torchwood Two, seemed almost inordinately chipper at such a late night meeting. Of course, the one-man Glasgow branch never had to face the same challenges as the Cardiff one. All Sir Archibald call-me-Archie had to do was to supervise the Secondary Archives hidden under his own mansion, watch over the Loch Ness monster and occasionally visit Torchwood House, where some of the most dangerous and secret stuff was stored.

He was the only Torchwood leader who'd ever taken the job out of boredom, some twenty years earlier, as his considerable wealth allowed him to lead a cushioned life of his own choosing. Originally, he'd studied British history, focusing on peculiar legends about his own country, and that was how he'd stumbled over the werewolf stories surrounding Torchwood House.

He'd kept digging with he typical stubbornness of a blue-blooded Scotsman, and as it would have raised uncomfortable questions if he'd suddenly lost his interest _and_ a good deal of his memories concerning the topic, Her Majesty – or some influential person close to her – decided to offer him a job instead. Sir Archibald had promptly accepted, and both sides had been happy with the solution ever since.

The video feed displayed on the big screen of the conference room showed him in his library: a spacious, vaulted room, each wall of which lined with old shelves, beautifully carved of dark, polished wood. Each shelf was laden with books of various sizes and ages – from hand-written medieval codexes that had been in the possession of the McAllister clan for centuries to the newest editions. The latter ones were all about history or such practical topics as digital cataloguing or the best way to conserve old books and archaeological founds.

Sir Archibald might be slightly eccentric, to put it mildly, but he knew his stuff, and Ianto happened to know that he was very good with computers. Not on Tosh's level, of course, few people could reach that, but way better than the average. He didn't develop new programmes himself, but he could use the ones handed him by geniuses like Tosh at peak efficiency.

Currently, he was sitting in a heavy, throne-like armchair with carved legs and armrests at the fireplace, wearing a kilt with a long-sleeved black shirt and knee-length socks to his dress shoes, drinking tea. At least Ianto thought it was tea, based on the cup in his hands – an early 19th century Spode cup, decorated in rich Imari colours and gilded in the so-called dollar pattern and presumably expensive, too.

Sir Archibald was a great defender of tradition and would never drink anything but tea from a delicate cup like that. Ianto suppressed a smile. He liked the eccentric Scotsman, despite the age and class difference between them.

"Greetings, Sir Archibald," he said. "I apologise for the delay. We had an unexpected situation at our hands."

"Aye, I know it, laddie," the Scotsman replied. "I was talkin' to The Brig just a wee hour ago."

Ianto nodded. He'd expected Captain Magambo to report _everything_ to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. And since the great old man of UNIT was Sir Archibald's godfather, the two families having been befriended for at least two hundred years, it was only logical that the Torchwood Two leader would learn anything the brigadier knew.

"The… situation as ye're callin' it, is a delicate one," Sir Archibald continued. "Ye're already hidin' someone UNIT would just _love_ layin' their hands on. Y'all are takin' an awful lot of risk by puttin' up with that lad Erisa has found."

"I know," Ianto sighed. "But I can't afford him to fall into UNIT's hands. He comes from the near future; and he'd be easy to break. Not to mention the… erm… sensitive equipment he has access to."

Not even through this doubly-secured channel did he dare to speak about Adam's implant openly, and Sir Archibald nodded in agreement, his normally watery blue eyes darkening in concern. He'd clearly been given sufficient details by the brigadier.

"That could become a problem," he said. "I cannae shake the impression that Colonel Oduya would dearly love UNIT takin' over Torchwood's role completely. He's been askin' an awful lot of questions: about yerself, about Jack… has even dug out somethin' about Toshiko."

"I thought Jack had Tosh's record wiped," Ianto said with a frown. Sir Archibald nodded.

"Aye, that he has. But ya know as well as I do that nothin' once recoded can be deleted for good. In fact, even if somethin' hadnae been recorded any other way but by omission can be used against ya."

Ianto's frown deepened. "What do you mean, Sir Archibald?"

"Jack hasnae reported anythin' about the reason of yer suspension a year or so ago," the Scotsman replied grimly. "But there _is_ a remark about yer havin' been suspended for four weeks. And now Colonel Oduya is lookin' for the reason."

"Then we'll have to forge something plausible," Ianto said with a shrug.

"Be sure ye'r doin' a thorough job," Sir Archibald warned. "Oduya's like a bloodhound; and ya know that – unlike Her Majesty – the Prince of Wales isnae a friend of Torchwood."

"Fortunately for us, both his sons are," Ianto replied.

"Aye, but their _father_ is the heir apparent," Sir Archibald reminded him, "and Torchwood is answerin' to the Crown directly. It's a good thing that we've been regroupin' founds ever since ya took over, so that we'll be able to run things on our own, at least financially, for the next hundred years. But losing our facilities wouldnae make it easy."

"I know," Ianto sighed. "That's why I've been following up on our earlier idea of relocating some of the really sensitive stuff to other places. Both Torchwood House and your own mansion are too well-known, to friend and foe alike. I've already started looking for secure storage places through third parties that can't be tracked back to Torchwood. Hopefully we'll be able to stay a step ahead of Colonel Oduya and his supporters."

"Someplace where Torchwood hasnae been active before would be preferable," Sir Archibald suggested, and Ianto nodded in agreement.

"I was thinking of Ireland, for starters," he said. "Although establishing several such storages would be even better. We can't risk putting all our eggs in the same basket. And moving at least part of the sensitive stuff out of the UK, yet close enough to gain access to it if necessary, might be an advantage."

"_Or_ a risk of equal measure," Sir Archibald muttered unhappily. "Still, it's worth tryin'. I presume ye're thinkin' of Dublin?"

Ianto nodded. "_H. C. Clemens_ used to have a really big warehouse there. UNIT had it cleaned out a year or so ago and put it on sale. We've managed to persuade the transport firm _Harwood's_ to buy it. They're genuinely using the upper levels, without knowing about the secured and sealed sublevels. We can start from there and expand if necessary."

"I dunno," Sir Archibald said doubtfully. "How are ya plannin' to access the sublevels without drawin' attention?"

"We'll use the lorries of _Harwood's_," Ianto explained. "The wife of their manager works for us… well, she officially runs the tourist information shack for the Welsh Tourist Board. The husband hasn't got a clue what she's really doing here; the paper trail is absolutely waterproof. We can rent the lorries through third parties – they deliver all over the British Isles – and then Retcon the drivers afterwards. Only very mildly, mind you, so that they wouldn't remember where the warehouses had been."

"Still risky," Sir Archibald commented.

Ianto sighed. "I know, but that's the best we can do right now. Which brings me back to the topic of Torchwood House. How's the cataloguing going?"

"Slowly," Sir Archibald admitted with some reluctance. "I didnae found the right people for the job, so I'm workin' on it meself, whenever I've got the time. Which isnae as often as I'd lie. 'Specially since the curator of the House died last year. I've been doublin' for him, too, and gonna have to till the successor arrives."

"Do you know who it will be?" Ianto asked. Sir Archibald shook his head.

"Nay; they're very hush-hush about it."

"That's not good," Ianto was thinking furiously. "We'll have to speed up things at our end, just in case it would be someone we couldn't work with. Listen, what about sending you our two recent… _guests_? Jenny is good with… sensitive equipment by default, being who – and _what_ – she is, and Adam has done similar work in the States for years. They could be a great help."

"Aye, but are they trustworthy, too?" Sir Archibald asked.

"I'm reasonably sure that _Jenny_ is," Ianto replied, "and I had Adam equipped with a subcutaneous tracking implant. He can't go anywhere without us knowing it. Of course, keeping track of him when he's in Torchwood House would be a little more complicated, but I'm sure our technicians can come up with something."

"Well I sure could use the help," Sir Archibald admitted. "But let's think about the details before makin' any decisions. We should discuss this again in what? Two days?"

Ianto nodded. "That will suffice. Good night, Sir Archibald."

"Laddie, I already told you a hundred times to call me Archie," the Scotsman scoffed.

Ianto gave him a bland smile. "And I still don't think it would be appropriate. See you in two days."

* * *

Sir Archibald's news didn't serve to calm Ianto's nerves, although, as usual, he showed no sign of concern when he left the conference room. He couldn't fool Jack, though. Not anymore. Not since they'd had that telepathic encounter during his coma.

"Is something wrong?" Jack asked quietly.

"I'm not sure," Ianto limped over to Sally's workstation. "What can you tell me about Colonel Oduya?"

"You mean career-wise, not his private life, right?" Sally clarified.

Ianto nodded.

"Not much," she admitted. "He's not very popular among his fellow officers – _or_ among the simple soldiers, for that matter – and has never done anything that would justify his current position. They say, however, that he's got some very powerful supporters at the Home Office, although nobody seems to know who those people are. He and Colonel Mace used to compete with each other ever since joining UNIT, with Mace clearly winning – until that unfortunate scandal with him and Captain Price. Oduya only started to rise in the ranks after The Brig's retirement. The Brig didn't like him at all; and now he's retaliating by removing all of The Brig's protégées from their positions."

"For someone who's left UNIT over a year ago you're amazingly well-informed," Jack said. Sally shrugged.

"I still talk to people over there. And Private Jenkins is the biggest gossip on the planet. With his connections he's in the known of most things, too."

"Jenkins?" Jack said with a frown. "I thought you had a thing with PC Andy."

"We still have… sort of," Sally replied. "We've put our relationship on a hiatus, though. It was becoming too much, too close, being together all the time… I could barely breathe anymore. So we decided to see other people for a while, with the possibility to get back together again."

"And for you _other people_ means Private Jenkins?" Ianto asked; not judgementally, just surprised. He hadn't seen _that_ coming, not that the private life of his colleagues would be his business.

Sally grinned. "We're just friends. We both like computer games and gossip, so it's fun. But nothing else."

"As long as you both enjoy it," Ianto paused. "Do you think he could find out more about Colonel Oduya? Can you ask him to do so? Or should I speak with him personally?"

Sally shook her head. "No; he doesn't react well to authorities, and let's face it, you _are_ authority. Even though he actually likes you. I'll ask him to find us more details without getting caught."

"And he'll be willing to do so?" Ianto asked doubtfully. Sally nodded.

"Oh, yes. It will be a challenge, and he loves challenges. Besides, even if he does get caught snooping around, Oduya can't touch him. His family's connections reach too far for that."

"Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I thought they disowned him," Ianto said. Sally laughed.

"Oh, they did all right. But family honour wouldn't allow having a little upstart like Augustus Oduya go against even a disgraced member of such an illustrious family. It's all a matter of principle, after all. Don't worry; he'll be safe, and so will we. Nobody would suspect that he's spying for us. Not with him serving under Colonel Mace."

"Thank God for small favours," Ianto leaned on his cane heavily; his leg was on fire again and his vision blurred. "Now, Jack, if the offer to drive me home still stands, I'd be happy to accept."

Jack nodded and put aside the paperwork; he'd made an impressive dent in it while Ianto had talked to Sir Archibald.

"Sure," he said. "Do we take your car or the SUV?"

"It may be reckless of me to allow you to drive my car, but I might need it tomorrow, so the Audi it is," Ianto replied tiredly. "Can you bring it around to the Plass? I think I'll take the lift. I don't feel like climbing all those sodding stairs; I'd rather pay the fee for parking where we shouldn't."

Jack nodded again and hurried off to get the car. Ianto hobbled over to the invisible lift and was mildly surprised when Sally stepped up the slab next to him.

"You're dead on your feet," she said with a kind smile. "I can't let you fall off the platform; Jack would skin me alive."

Ianto was too exhausted to protest, and so she supported him while the lift ascended with them towards the ceiling.

* * *

There was practically no traffic at this time of the night, so the drive to Ianto's place took less than twenty minutes. He still lived in the bleak little flat rented when he'd first moved back to Cardiff with he half-converted Lisa hidden in the van he'd _borrowed_ from the UNIT troops cleaning up after the Battle of Canary Wharf. It wasn't much, but it was his, and he preferred it that way.

Jack had repeatedly tried to talk him into moving in with him into the penthouse previously belonging to Owen, but Ianto found the place too fancy. Besides, as he'd pointed out several times, if Owen wasn't allowed to live in such a… tempting place, due to suppressed suicidal tendencies, then he, Ianto, shouldn't be, either. Like all survivors of Canary Wharf, he was still on suicide watch, too. Even if it only meant that he and Trevor looked after each other, and together they looked after the others. Like Jeannie.

They were the ones with the best prognosis, but that didn't mean they were completely beyond danger. And his current encounter with the telepathic _h__ithon_ assassin hadn't helped things. It certainly hadn't helped the nightmares – added a few new ones to the collection, in fact.

Not that nightmares would have been something new for him. He always had them, long before Canary Wharf; ever since his childhood. Ever since his Mam had died in _Providence Park_ and his Tad started drinking heavily, unable to cope with the dual loss of his wife and his small business. A master tailor, forced to eke out a meagre living making alterations at Debenham's? Small wonder he couldn't deal with it; but understanding the reasons _now_ didn't help the child Ianto had been _then_.

That was when the nightmares had started. His Tad, a gentle and considerable man and doting father while sober, always became a nasty and violent drunk. He'd only lasted four years after his wife's death, but those had been the longest four years in Ianto's life. They had also been the reason why Rhiannon would marry Johnny Davies in such a hurry. Even if it meant giving up school and any chance for a better education. _Everything_ was better than watching their Tad drinking himself into an early grave.

He was startled out of his memories when Jack opened the door of his flat and deftly maneuvered him inside. Ianto hobbled along the hall, grateful that his place was tiny and he didn't have to walk far, and collapsed on the sofa.

"You need a long, hot shower and your bed," Jack said. "Actually, a bath would be even better."

"I don't think I can manage," Ianto replied, without opening his eyes.

Jack snorted. "Nonsense. I'll carry you to the bathtub if I have to, but you're _not_ going to bed with all those knotted muscles. Your leg must be a mess by now."

"You just want to see me naked," Ianto still refused to open his eyes.

"That, too," Jack admitted unrepentantly, "but tonight only for medical purposes. Wait here. I'll start running that bath; then I'll come back and help you."

Roughly an hour later, after a lengthy, hot bath and another one of Jack's skilled massages that always left him in a near-gelatinous state, Ianto felt marginally better. He was lying in bed, comfortably ensconced in the duvet… and Jack, who was spooned up behind him, pressing against his back as was his wont ever since he'd come back and they'd worked out their most serious issues.

Jack seemed to carve human touch since his return, and knowing a little of what'd happened to him during the Year That Never Was, it didn't truly surprise Ianto. Jack had always been affectionate and more touchy-feely than most men (especially British men), coming from a time where people were less repressed, but since his return he'd been positively clinging sometimes.

Like now.

"What's wrong?" Ianto murmured, half-asleep.

He needed sleep the worst way, almost as badly as he craved coffee, but he had figured out in the recent months that when Jack was _this_ clingy, it always meant that something had upset him. Something personal, not just the usual crap that counted as normal for an average day at Torchwood.

For quite some time Jack said nothing, and Ianto began to worry. Whenever Jack was reluctant to answer, it never meant good. They'd been working on the not communicating thing since they'd got together again, but Jack, used to deal with things on his own for too long, still had difficulties with opening up.

Finally, when Ianto had almost given up on the topic, at least for tonight, he could hear Jack's low voice vibrating against his back.

"If you could do something to prevent what happened at Canary Wharf, would you do it?"

It was Ianto's turn now to wait with an answer, cos honestly, could you tell what he would do in the unlikely case the chance would offer itself?

"I don't know," he finally said, and that was the most truthful answer he could possibly give. "All my instincts scream at me to say yes; after all, hundreds of people died, and not just my colleagues in the Tower, but… knowing what I do _now_ about the butterfly effect, I'm not sure I'd dare to intervene."

"Not even if you could save Lisa?" Jack murmured against his back, and Ianto smiled in the darkness of his bedroom, finally understanding what was wrong.

What was _truly_ wrong.

Few people would believe that Jack Harkness had his own set of insecurities, just like everyone else, cos he screened them so well behind that loud, obnoxious, flirtatious persona he showed to the rest of the world. Only when they were alone and unobserved did he _sometimes_ allow his very human weakness to show. Those moments were extremely rare, and Ianto cherished them more than anything; cos they showed Jack's trust towards him.

"I loved Lisa very much," he said simply, cutting to the core of Jack's fear. "You know what I've risked in a futile attempt to save her… and how _that_ ended. But I'm no longer the young, carefree… and horribly naïve person that used to be so happy with her. Too much has happened since then, Canary Wharf being just the beginning. I couldn't go back to that person, even if I wanted."

"You don't want to?" Jack murmured. Ianto laughed quietly.

"Oh, I'd be happy _not_ to be responsible for Torchwood and all that crap that comes with the job," he said. "But otherwise? I'm content with what I have – _whom_ I have. Let's sleep."

Jack made a noise of agreement and was quiet for a while. But when Ianto had almost fallen asleep, he started speaking again.

"Do you remember what we talked about after Rhys and Emma's wedding?"

Ianto snorted. "Yep. You offered to bear my children. Jack, must we really discuss this when all I want is to sleep?"

"I just wanted to tell you that the offer still stands," Jack murmured.

"Duly noted," Ianto tried to keep hold on his exasperation. Jack seemed to have one of his vulnerable moments, so he had to tread carefully. "But you should finally realize that you don't have to fight against Lisa's memory."

"If you're sure about that…"

"I'm _very_ sure. Just let me have some sleep, please? I'm passing out as we speak."

~TBC~


	5. Chapter 5: A Day in the Hub, Part 1

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

To understand the problem with Jenny's ship I'm afraid you'll have to read the previous episode. It's too long to be explained in a note.

* * *

**Chapter 05 – A Day in the Hub**

When Adam woke up in the next morning after a surprisingly restful night, his wrist watch showed 5.50 a.m. It was the longest sleep he'd had ever since his Mum had kicked him out of the house. Granted, he'd slept in a prison cell – more or less – but at least he could sleep without the constant fear of being fund out… since he already _had_ been found out, as far as the Torchwood gang was concerned.

He got out of bed and gave the door a tentative try, still half-expecting it to be closed, despite all the assurances that he'd be allowed to move around freely inside the base. But the door was open indeed. He decided to take a shower – his room… cell… whatever had been slightly chilly and he needed to warm up.

To his surprise, he found the shower room already occupied. Well, one of the stalls anyway. The occupant, a lanky, curly-haired blond bloke with guileless blue eyes, gave him a friendly grin.

"Hello! You're the new resident, right? Adam isn't it?" he wiped his hand on the towel hanging on the low wall and extended it over it to Adam. "I'm Andy Davidson."

"Adam Mitchell," Adam shook the proffered hand. "You know who I am?"

"I've been debriefed," Andy explained kindly. "I've got night shift this week, so I'm the last to learn about the things that happen during the night."

"What kind of job are you doing here?" Adam asked.

Andy wrapped the towel around his waist before leaving the stall.

"I'm on the retrieval team," he replied, "with Trevor and Owen, usually. Sally is the fourth one of our team; she's our operator. She monitors the Rift activity from within the Hub, and when something comes through and we go out to get it, she follows us on the CCTV and gives us instructions."

Adam blinked in confusion. He hadn't understood a word of what the friendly bloke had said… he could have spoken in a different language.

"What rift?" he asked. "And what do you mean with _if something comes through_?"

Andy looked at him in surprise. "They didn't tell you? Oh man, I'm not good at this stuff. Anyway, there's a Rift in space-time running under Cardiff, and our base sits right on top of it. All sorts of things come through the Rift; from pieces of alien junk to the aliens themselves… sometimes even time-displaced people. The Rift activity shows up on our surveillance system, and whenever it does, we have to go out and check whatever comes through," he grinned again. "It's pretty exciting, most of the time."

"What did you do before joining Torchwood?" Andy found the bloke very likeable; plus, he was the first to answer his questions without much ado.

Any laughed. "I used to be a police constable. Trust me, it doesn't even compare," he put on a blue terrycloth dressing gown and shuddered. "We'll have to check the heating again."

"I thought you kept the temperatures low intentionally," Adam said. Andy shook his head.

"Nah, the place is _old_. Everything not controlled by Mainframe is accordingly wacky."

"What's Mainframe?" Adam inquired. Andy shrugged apologetically.

"Sorry, I'm not allowed to speak about it… _her_. I'm sure Ianto will tell you when he thinks it's time."

Adam nodded. He'd expected that much; they wouldn't share sensitive information with him – why would they? He was their prisoner, not their co-worker, even if they called him a _resident_. That was just a polite word for it. He wasn't going to press; that would only raise suspicions. There were other ways to get his hands on information.

"Do you also live here?" he asked instead.

"God, no!" Andy protested, laughing. "I've got a perfectly nice flat not far from here. But I usually shower before going home cos the nightly retrievals are often dirty business. Besides, I wouldn't miss breakfast unless I absolutely have to. Rhys and Emma always bring us home-made scones or muffins or sticky buns, and the coffee is fantastic, even if Ianto isn't the one to make it."

"Your _boss_ makes coffee for you?" Adam found that a little hard to believe.

Andy shrugged. "Well, he used to be the general support officer – the same job Rhys has now – and he's still the only one who can operate the big coffee machine. Dratted thing is a hundred years old, at least, and insanely complicated. But Emma or Beth are both very good with the modern coffee-maker, so we're always properly caffeinated."

He walked over to the row of lockers Adam hadn't even spotted last night and opened one of them to get his clothes.

"I see they've already given you a locker," he added over his shoulder. Adam was baffled.

"They have? But I haven't got any clothes…"

"It seems someone ordered stuff for you," Andy opened another locker, one that was labelled 'Adam', and indeed, there were several changes of clothing, neatly folded, including underwear and even socks and slippers.

"But how could they know the size?" Adam muttered in surprise. Andy laughed.

"Ianto's Dad was a master tailor. The day on which he can't judge a man's size by merely watching him walk from the table to the door has yet to come. Go on, take a shower and try out your new stuff; then come up to the Hub. Breakfast it at 7 a.m."

* * *

About forty minutes later Adam emerged from the shower room, wearing one set of the clothes his… _hosts_ had left for him in the locker. They were simple, nondescript pieces of the sort one could get cheaply at Tesco's or other big supermarkets, but at least they fit perfectly: jeans and a long-sleeved hoodie, which was welcome in the chill of the base. He was even given some basic toiletries, including a comb and a hairbrush, and when he'd managed to bring his hair into some semblance of order, he almost felt like his old self again. The one before meeting the Doctor.

He only hoped nobody would click his fingers during breakfast.

The scene that greeted him in the main Hub area was almost shockingly domestic. Andy, Mickey, the tall blonde woman from the lab whose name he'd forgotten and a few others he hadn't met yet were sitting around a coffee table, on the sofa or on chairs of various sizes, having breakfast. Today's choice were apparently blueberry tarts, which a big, good-natured Welshman they called Rhys – the general support officer then – had just re-heated in the microwave and was now generously distributing among the breakfast crowd, while the pretty, strawberry blonde secretary of the Torchwood director – Emma, if Adam remembered correctly – served coffee.

They all seemed in a fairly good mood, laughing and joking about the previous night, which seemed to have been quiet. At least compared to the average.

"Only two stray Weevils and some alien toaster," Andy was saying when Adam entered the main working area. "Can I have the toaster, Ianto? Jack says it's harmless, but the power cell is supposed to last a lifetime, so I could use it on camping trips, too, where ain't any local power source."

"Not before we've checked with the database," Director Jones, clad in a sharp suit and a purple shirt with a black tie, replied, sniffing the coffee vapours woefully. "If it does check out safe, be my guest. We've got too much junk in the Archives already, and with today's designs…" he trailed off, but Andy knew what he meant and grinned happily.

"Ta, mate," then he spotted Adam in the doorframe and waved at him. "Hey, Adam, come and have breakfast while there still is some."

Adam eased closer to the gang warily, unsure about his welcome, but nobody seemed to have any objections to his presence. Well, Captain Harkness probably would have – he hadn't seemed to like him that much – but he wasn't here, and neither was Jenny, the tough blonde soldier girl. _Or_ the sour-mannered doctor.

The others moved their chairs a little to make room for Adam on Andy's left, and he pulled up an empty stool and got seated, still ready to bolt if he had to. He was given his own share of coffee and blueberry tarts and got summarily ignored while the Torchwood gang discussed the to-do list of the day.

It promised to be an eventful one, even without a potential Rift alert, Adam decided, as names and possible assignments were thrown back and forth between the people. It appeared that Torchwood Three didn't have enough people for three full shifts, and so the one or other had to put on double shifts from time to time.

"Jack and Jenny have gone to the warehouse to work on her ship," the lovely, elegant Asian woman who was clearly their head geek said. "Trevor and I will take over as soon as our experiment has run its cycle."

"Have you got any closer to solving the fuel problem?" Jones asked.

The woman shrugged. "I don't know, Ianto. We'll have to wait for the results of the experiment. It's not an easy problem. We haven't got anything that would be compatible with Raxacoricofallapatorian technology; nothing ready-made anyway. The power cells of the Slitheen ship burned out when it crashed into the Big Ben, so there's nothing to salvage, aside from a few spare parts. We're dealing with the near-impossible here: trying to build a power cell for an alien spaceship from the scratch. Even with Jenny's knowledge, it's a gargantuan task. Her people hadn't bothered with conservative space-faring methods for a very long time."

Jones nodded. "I know, Tosh. But I also know that if _anyone_ on this planet could do it, that would be you. Keep me informed, will you?"

The woman by the name of Tosh – and what kind of name was _that_ anyway? – smiled at him. "Sure thing, Ianto. Will you be in today?"

"Not in the morning; I've got physio at 9 a.m.," Jones replied, "but I'll come back afterwards. If one of you could drive me to _Providence Park_, I can get a lift from Doctor Fox and bring Jeannie with me on my way back."

"Why is Doctor Fox coming here?" Andy asked.

Jones glanced at Adam. "We'll need a psychic evaluation before we'd let him near any alien tech," he then turned to a tall, dark-haired bloke sitting with the blonde of the lab and added. "_And_ the complete blood work, too, Tom."

"I don't need a shrink!" Adam protested, but Jones gave him a quelling look.

"Yes, you do; or are you telling me that what you've gone through since meeting the Doctor didn't left any traces?"

The answer to that was so obvious that Adam didn't even bother. For all goals and purposes he _was_ a wreck and he knew it. He just wasn't eager to admit it.

Jones gave him the ghost of a smile. "Don't worry. Doctor Fox is very competent – and very discreet. She's on our paylist, after all."

"Ever since Jack's talked you into buying _Providence Park_," Rhys commented, and the others laughed.

"Why the hurry, though?" the tall, dark-haired bloke, presumably their other medic, asked. "He won't be leaving the base any time soon, unless I'm mistaken."

"There's been a change of plans," Jones told them. "I might have to send him and Jenny to Torchwood House, soon. I must know if I can afford to take that risk with him."

"Torchwood House?" the lady scientist repeated in surprise. "I thought Archie was dealing with the stuff there."

"He is," Jones said, "but he can't manage alone. And given the inordinate amount of interest the new UNIT commander is showing for us lately, Sir Archibald and I decided to speed up the work at the House… and evacuate some sensitive equipment, just in case."

Adam could see he lady scientist become stark white and wondered why. Could she have crossed blades with UNIT before – and lost?

"What could they possibly want from us?" she asked.

"I don't know," Jones admitted with a shrug, "but Colonel Oduya is a bit too ambitious for my comfort. Sir Archibald thinks he wants UNIT to replace Torchwood completely and has certain supporters in the Home Office who'd like to see him succeed."

"That's so not good, in so many ways that I can't even begin to count," the bespectacled bald man in the white lab coat sitting next to the lady scientist said grimly. "Could Archie simply be paranoid? Ms Hartmann always said he was."

The lady scientist shook her head. "No, he wasn't. He simply didn't like Yvonne Hartmann and refused to send her any reports on principle. But he's no fool; don't let his little idiosyncrasies mislead you. He has a keen sense for danger – he fought in the Gulf War as a volunteer, right before joining Torchwood… and survived Operation Granby. _And_ he has his own connections to learn things that not even we can. If he says something is in the bush, then something _is_ in the bush."

"The more reason to take preventive measures… Rift permitting," Jones said. "There are things – and information – stored both here and in Torchwood House that would be very dangerous in the wrong hands. We can always initiate self-destruct here, but I'd rather not destroy everything, unless we absolutely have to. And in Torchwood House, we don't even have that option. We'll have to move before Oduya does."

"You want to evacuate," Rhys said slowly. "Do you have a new storage place for the things? A reasonably safe one?"

Jones nodded. "You remember the warehouse we had _Harwood's_ buy for us? That will be the beginning. Sally's already looking for other possibilities. But to move things there we'll need Mike Halloran's help with the transport."

"That won't be a problem," Rhys promised. "I'll look into it. We can use the fake furniture company in this case, as I assume we're gonna need the really big lorries."

"Good," Jones said. "I'll leave that in your capable hands. Now, I'd like to hear today's duty roster."

Emma studied her PDA. "Toshiko, Captain Harkness, Doctor Milligan and Doctor Lloyd have the morning shift, with Mickey on call," she said. "I have Rift duty and Rhys is going to Flat Holm; he can drop you off at _Providence Park_ on his way. You, Doctor McKay, Jenny and Owen have second watch, with Andy on call, and Beth has Rift duty in the afternoon, but she'll be in by 9 a.m, in case another pair of hands is needed. As usual, Sally, Doctor Howard and Andy have the graveyard shift and Owen will be on call, should a medical emergency occur."

"That's not good," their medic said. "Harper's got a therapy session at 10 p.m with Emilia. That means he won't have any downtime at all. Couldn't Dr. Connelly step in tonight?"

Emma shook her head apologetically. "Afraid not; she's on A&E duty at _St. Helen's_."

Jones rubbed his eyes tiredly. "We really need a third medic. We can't have you pull double shifts all the time – or use freelancers in the long run."

"What about Martha?" the lady scientist suggested. "She usually works in the morning; and she'd need to be informed about the new situation," her eyes rested on Adam for a moment. Jones nodded.

"Ask her; but we'll need a permanent solution, eventually. All right, people, if everyone's finished let's face the new day."

"What am I supposed to do?" Adam asked uncertainly.

"Well, since you've already eaten, I obviously can't do your blood work today," the doctor the others called Tom said. "I'll do it first thing in the morning tomorrow, though, so I'll see you at 6 a.m., sharp – and don't eat before!"

Adam pulled a face but didn't protest. It was only logical hat they'd need to know if he was carrying any germs or not if he was to stay with them 7/24.

"I've got time until our experiment is finished," the lady scientist – Tosh? Toshiko? - offered. "Since you'll be working with me – mostly, anyway – we can get acquainted in that time, and I can introduce you to Mainframe," she held out a small, surprisingly strong hand. "I'm Toshiko Sato."

"_Doctor_ Toshiko Sato," the bald, bespectacled bloke corrected and also shook hands with Adam. "And I'm Trevor Howard."

"_Doctor_ Trevor Howard," Toshiko grinned. "We're the local geeks, in case you haven't realized yet. We've got a part-time colleague, but she won't come in until later."

"Adam Mitchell," Adam introduced himself, somewhat unnecessarily, since they clearly knew who he was. "Who's Mainframe?"

Toshiko smiled with proprietary pride. "Come with me and I'll introduce you to her."

* * *

She led Adam to the other side of the main area, to her own workplace: a metal-plated desk, standing on four sturdy columns, illuminated by vertical neon tubes, and half a dozen metal-framed screens working at the same time, seemingly hanging from the vaulted ceiling. The keyboard was like nothing Adam had seen before, not even at _GeoComTex_, which had been well above everything human science had come up in the current decade.

Clearly, there was more than just _human_ science at work. The screens appeared to work on their own, incredibly complex programmes running simultaneously, without the need of an operator to control them. Other, smaller screens, probably serving security or control purposes, were embedded in the old Victorian wall behind the desk.

"This is Mainframe?" Adam asked uncertainly. Toshiko shook her head.

"No; it's just her main interface where our systems and programs are linked together. She's our computer, but she's so much more than just that. In many ways, she _is_ the Hub."

"You mean it's sentient?" Adam frowned.

"We usually refer to Mainframe as _she_," Toshiko corrected. "I'm not sure why, but she's been labelled as a female entity from the beginning."

"What do you mean an _entity_?" Adam's frown deepened. "Is she alive or what?"

"In a way, yes," Toshiko nodded. "Jack says she's been here as long as Torchwood has. She originates either from a piece of organic technology that fell through the Rift and found the right environment to survive, or from an unknown crystalline life form; we don't know. She does have an artificial intelligence, or so we think – it's too advanced for us to figure out. She's in any case organic, and as such she spreads and learns and develops like any other living thing – which is why we consider her an entity."

"What do you use her for? Aside from gathering information and watching that Rift of yours, I mean?" Adam tried to hide his excitement, but it wasn't easy. His fingers positively itched to explore such an amazing piece of technology.

"For much more than just that," Toshiko said. "Mainframe ensures that everything in the base works as it's supposed to; and she's intuitive. Don't even dream of outsmarting her – you haven't got a chance. Nobody has. She's usually a step ahead of us all, and Ianto has to argue with her seriously whenever he wants to put any changes into the Archival system."

"The computer can shut your _boss_ out?" Adam was shocked.

"Yes, if she thinks the changes suggested would compromise the security of the base," Toshiko replied. "Fortunately, she seems to like Ianto, so we don't have to pull out the emergency protocols every time they disagree."

She gestured at a second desk, opposite hers, on the other side of the open glass door. It was fairly similar to hers but had only one screen and a fairly common keyboard.

"This will be your workplace. Ianto decided that for the time being you should monitor the internet for any alien artefacts that are offered on those black market auctions. We don't want to risk something really dangerous end up in the wrong hands."

Adam nodded. It was basically the same job he'd done – well, in a sense was still doing – for Mr. Van Statten in Utah. He could do this. He could do a good job, even.

"But how am I gonna know what's dangerous and what isn't?" he asked.

"I've installed a hardware recognition program on your computer," Toshiko explained. "It's connected to our digital database and can identify objects already known to us. If they're harmless, like Andy's alien toaster, we just record the seller and the buyer and let them have their fun. If it's something dangerous… well, in that case we'll have to intervene."

"You mean buy the thing?" Adam asked. "You've got that much money?"

"We do have considerable funds, yes, but we don't _buy_ dangerous artefacts," Toshiko replied grimly. "That would encourage the market. We simply confiscate them."

Adam was baffled. "You can do _that_?"

"Torchwood has the jurisdiction to do so within the UK and we still get our contacts in the other Commonwealth states," Toshiko explained. "In other countries we simply retrieve the items ourselves – well, usually Jack does it. He's got a lot of experience with that kind of thing and never failed so far. If the seller is… unreasonable, we place hard evidence for the local authorities that they deal dangerous substances and have contact to terrorist organisations."

"Man, that's cold!" Adam said, truly shocked.

Toshiko shrugged. "We didn't know about Mr Van Statten's Dalek, and look what happened. Do you really think those two hundred-and-some people who'll be massacred in 2012 would have really minded if Mr Van Statten ended up in Guantanamo before the massacre would take place?"

"Probably not," Adam admitted. "Couldn't you still prevent it?"

Toshiko shook her head in regret. "Technically, yes, we might be able to. But we can't. We're not allowed to temper with certain events. It could change the timeline and lead to catastrophic results. You've heard of the butterfly effect, I presume?" Adam nodded. "Well, there you have it. It's hard to watch people suffer and die when you'd have the technical means to save them, but sometimes it has to be. I'm sure the Doctor explained it to you."

"Yeah, he was always harping about the timelines and stuff," Adam frowned. "Wait a minute, you know him, too?"

Toshiko nodded. "I travelled with the same one as you, for two years. It was before your time. Rose was visiting her Mum for the weekend, and the Doctor was bored. So he invited me for a little trip in the meantime."

"A _little trip_?" Adam echoed. "You call two _years_ a little trip?"

"It was the best time of my life," Toshiko said with a soft smile.

"Why have you left then?" Adam asked. "Or has he kicked you out, too?"

"Oh, no," she smiled. "But I had a contract with Torchwood and I had to fulfil it. Besides, I couldn't stay with him forever. I had a life here, a family that I didn't want to give up."

She gestured to Adam to sit down at his desk and quickly typed in the username and the password assigned to him.

"Don't try to change it," she warned. "Mainframe won't let you; and if you think you can outsmart her, well, you have a big surprise coming. You access is restricted to the searching of the digital database of alien artefacts known to us and the passive monitoring of the internet. You're not allowed to have any outside contacts, at least not until 2013. I'm sorry, but this is for the safety of everyone – including your own."

"But if I'm to be sent to this Torchwood House, wherever it is, then I _will_ have outside contacts," he pointed out logically."

"Unlikely," she replied. "It's an isolated place, not even mobile pones work there; and Jenny will keep an eye on you. Besides, we can track you everywhere through your implant, so try not to do anything stupid. That would piss Ianto off, and believe me, you don't want him to be pissed at you."

Adam snorted. "Jones? I'm supposed to be afraid of that self-important little bureaucrat?"

"That little bureaucrat as you call him has survived Canary Wharf," Toshiko said coldly. "You can't imagine how _creative_ he can be if someone makes him really mad. It's always the quiet ones you should be wary of."

"Including you?" Adam tried to joke but her icy glare nipped the effort in the bud.

"You have no idea, young man. Now, I suggest that you shut your mouth before you'd manage to put your foot in again and try to get used to your new job."

* * *

As previously arranged, Rhys dropped Ianto off at _Providence Park_ on his way to Flat Holm. Ianto dutifully went through two hours of exhausting (and fairly unpleasant) physiotherapy, like every third day since his encounter with the alien assassin five weeks ago, then showered, put on his clothes again and went to the office of the head psychiatrist for their weekly meeting. Not his own therapy session, by the way – he was to begin psychotherapy _after_ finishing physio and still hoped to avoid it – but because Torchwood had patients of interest in _Providence Park_.

Dr. Emilia Fox was a thin, fairly plain blonde woman in her late forties and had only got the job four weeks earlier. Previously she'd practiced in London, specialising in complicated, highly confidential trauma cases, like the survivors of Canary Wharf and other patients somehow related to alien activity, in association with UNIT.

Like so many civilian employees, she'd been the protégée of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Unlike the others, however, she'd made precautions after The Brig's retirement and loosened her contacts with UNIT in time – before she could have been complimented out by the new commanding officers.

Her last UNIT-related assignment, the one that was still running parallel to her current job, had been a call to the UNIT base outside Cardiff. She'd been asked (by Commodore Harry Sullivan, no less) to help some young soldiers who'd been heavily damaged during the recent Sontaran invasion. That promised to be a lengthy job; the three young men were still far from recovery.

She'd soon learned that a former patient of hers, Dr. Jeannie McKay of Torchwood London, was a resident of _Providence Park_, the local psychiatric hospital. During Jeannie she'd come in contact with Ianto Jones again – and the rest, as people liked to say, was history.

She'd been offered the job of head psychiatrist less than two weeks before Torchwood would buy _Providence Park_ to make it the last resort of all sorts of people who'd been damaged by various encounters with alien technology or the visiting aliens themselves. She was eminently suited for the job, and she liked it – it was refreshingly different from listening to war veterans or to depressed wives left by their husbands for younger women.

For this chance she could live with the sometimes awkward encounters with her ex, Tom Milligan, who also worked for Torchwood Cardiff. They were both mature adults, after all.

She looked up from her papers, smiling, when there was a knock on the door and Ianto Jones limped into her office, without waiting for an invitation.

"Ianto, you're done already? How was physio?"

"Effective, I must assume, since I hurt a lot more now than I did before," Ianto replied with a crooked smile and collapsed into the armchair before her desk.

Dr. Fox gave him a sympathetic grin. "Sorry to hear that. But the control tests are promising. The tremors in your hand have lessened by sixty per cent in the last four weeks – that's great news. The prognosis is that you'll regain full control over your fine motoric within another month."

Another _month_? Ianto closed his eyes for a moment. It seemed like eternity; but it couldn't be helped. He'd have to be patient.

"Any prognosis concerning my leg?" he then asked.

Dr. Fox shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, no. We're dealing with a technology here that's way above our heads. I discussed this with Tom and Doctor Harper and our best guess is that the nanogenes repair one problem after another. Once they're done with your fine motoric, they'll presumably start on your leg. We just can't tell in advance. I'm truly sorry."

"It's not your fault," Ianto said. "What about the headaches, though?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to put up with those until the little buggers are finished," Dr. Fox replied. "The headaches are a result of the nanogenes working on your brain damage; and the caffeine withdrawal, I'd say," she added with an understanding smile. She was a caffeine addict herself.

"Don't remind me of coffee," Ianto groaned. "I'm _this_ close to giving in and trying out decaf."

"Oh, the horror!" Dr. Fox simulated a very convincing shudder.

They laughed in complete agreement; then Ianto changed the topic. "So, doctor; tell me how our special residents are doing."

Dr. Fox consulted her papers. "Well, Jeannie has made some progress since she started working for Torchwood again. It's going to be a long process, but we're optimistic."

"She does a great job at the base," Ianto commented. "When she's working, she almost looks like her old self."

"You gave her purpose again," Dr. Fox said. "Something that she desperately needed. But I guess you know what it's like."

"Yeah," Ianto said slowly, remembering the bleak days after Canary Wharf; after the death of Lisa, the cold emptiness of it all. Without Jack, without the chance to return to Torchwood, he wouldn't have made it. "Yeah, I know what it's like."

"But you're recovered," Dr. Fox pointed out, "and perhaps, with a great deal of help, Jeannie will make a full recovery, too. She's willing to give it her best try – if for nothing else, then for the chance to see her daughter again."

"I know she's willing," Ianto replied, "But I'm still not convinced that it will be enough. She was freed from that cyber-conversion unit in the last possible moment. The first implant had already been fused with her flesh, as you know."

Dr. Fox nodded. "The shoulder wound."

"The shoulder wound," Ianto agreed. "Removing the implant was a nasty business, and no amount of plastic surgery could repair the damage completely. She's marked for life."

"And not just physically," Dr. Fox sighed. "She still does have nightmares."

"Well, not everyone is callous enough to bounce back from such an experience as if nothing had happened; like Gwen did," Ianto shrugged. "Speaking of which – how is _she_ doing? She hasn't begun to remember has she?"

"Not so far," Dr. Fox said, "although she seems to find Carys familiar for some reason. Have they met before?"

"That's an understatement," Ianto muttered. "Haven't you been told?" the therapist shook her head. "Remind me to show you the records once we're back in the Hub. She must be kept away from Carys, no matter what. Repeated encounters could trigger her memory. She's already beaten Retcon once; granted, the dosage was wrong, but still. Should she do it again, we won't have any other choice than to wipe her mind clean; or to execute her. And believe me, doctor, I'll see it done if I have to."

"As a medical professional I can't condone any such actions," Dr. Fox said coldly.

"You don't have to; this is my decision, not yours," Ianto returned even colder. "As the current Torchwood director, it's within my rights to order the execution of any Torchwood member – even of a former one – if they represent a threat for the organisation. I could have Gwen executed two years ago already and spare myself the pain she'd caused us all in the meantime. I didn't, because Jack had spared me in a situation that would have merited _my_ execution. I was given a second chance, and I granted it Gwen, too. But if she keeps endangering us all, I'll have to remove that threat, by all means necessary."

"How could she _possibly_ endanger any of you?" Dr. Fox asked doubtfully.

She knew that secret organizations could be ruthless at dealing with their own people – she'd worked for UNIT, after all – but to consider the execution of a person, and a former colleague at that, with such cold detachment still shocked her.

"By remembering and talking to the wrong people," Ianto replied grimly. "During its history Torchwood has alienated a lot of people, some of them in high places, and Jack did his best to piss off the local authorities, too. I've done my best to perform damage control, but in the short time since I took over that hasn't been much. Colonel Oduya isn't the only one who'd like to see us fall. He's just the currently most powerful one – he added, because they couldn't really know who Oduya's supporters were, not yet.

"And _if_ we fall, that won't mean just the team vanishing in some nameless UNIT prison," he continued. "It would mean the end of the Rift victims at Flat Holm, the temporarily displaced people and friendly, stranded aliens in the safe houses, the patients in _this_ hospital – they'd all fall with us. Or do you truly believe that UNIT, the new UNIT leaders would be bothered about their fate?"

Dr. Fox shook her head mutely. She didn't know Colonel Oduya and his staff well, but she'd been the one to do his psych evaluation before his most recent promotion and she wouldn't trust the man to care for a dog, much less for all those broken people Torchwood Three was supporting. And she definitely wouldn't want him to lay hand on all the potentially deadly stuff in the Torchwood Archives.

Her conscience still rebelled against the thought of keeping a patient in artificially induced amnesia, though. Even if said patient was Gwen Cooper, the bane of her existence – and that of the entire staff. She'd never had such a whiny, demanding, self-centered patient in her entire life, and she couldn't blame the nurses and orderlies who tried their best to avoid Little Miss Sensitive, as they called Ms Cooper. But that still didn't make wiping her memory right.

"Look," Ianto said tiredly, guessing the course of her thoughts, "We gave her the chance to restart her life with a clean slate, but she kept turning up at the most inconvenient times like a bad penny, endangering everyone's life. You've seen the records of Rhys and Emma's wedding – she could have gotten the entire wedding crowd massacred by the Nostrovites. Her obsession with Jack knows no boundaries, despite the fact that she doesn't actually remember him."

"How could she be obsessed with him if she doesn't remember him?" the doctor frowned.

"Well, she doesn't remember him _consciously_," Ianto clarified. "But the Nostrovite took on Jack's form when laying its egg inside her, and since they're telepathic, it means that was the most appealing image it had found in her mind. We sent her back to her parents to Swansea with a very convincing story afterwards – it was easy, she gets herself in trouble all the time and people _die_ as a result – but they brought her back to _Providence Park_ cos this is the best place in Wales and they can afford it. So, if you have an idea what we could do with her aside from shooting her tell me, because I'm at the end of my rope."

"What about a private institute somewhere abroad?" Dr. Fox suggested. "If her parents are so wealthy, I could suggest them moving her to Switzerland of France, where new, groundbreaking treatments are developed. She could have a comfortable, semi-independent life in one of those clinics and would still be monitored all the time."

"As long as she's on the other side of the pond, I'd even be willing to contribute to the payment, using the Torchwood funds," Ianto replied. "Just get her safely out of our hair."

"I'll make a few calls and see what I can do," Dr. Fox promised. "Now, there's another thing I've wanted to ask you for some time. It's about Carys."

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

"The few times she accidentally met Gwen, she suffered a serious relapse every time. She broke down in tears and started babbling about having killed dozens of men with sex," she looked at Ianto's impassive face with growing dread, still unwilling to admit that such things could be possible. "Why would a nice, simple girl like Carys say that?"

"Because that's the truth," Ianto replied grimly. "She did kill all those people… well, the alien within her did. It fed on sexual energy – the male version of it only – and reduced the guys to a handful of ash at the end of the act."

"She was possessed by an _alien_?" Dr. Fox shook her head in disbelief. "And I thought it couldn't come any weirder. You know what that sounds like, don't you? Like the insane plot of some really trashy science fiction film out of the 1950s."

"Nonetheless, that's exactly what happened," Ianto said.

"But how is that possible?" Dr. Fox still couldn't quite believe it. "How can you be possessed by an alien?"

"Well, it was a gaseous life form," Ianto explained. "One that Gwen accidentally released from the inside of a hollow meteorite – and poor Carys was the first suitable female host it came across. It would have killed her in the end; the human body isn't built to deal with that kind of pressure. We got to her in the last moment. Sometimes I wonder if we did her a favour, after all; look what's become of her."

"And she… or that alien… it really killed dozens of men?"

"The final count was fourteen, if I remember correctly," Ianto pulled a face. "That last stunt at the fertility clinic was truly impressive – in a sordid way. The floor was liberally coated in ash. Small wonder the poor girl couldn't get over it."

"But you made her forget," Dr. Fox said. Ianto shrugged.

"What else could we have done? She was going mad, couldn't cope with the memories. We took her from the insane asylum, Retconned her and put her in the private wing here, with the consent of her father. At least she's fairly content here, most of the time; and it is less painful for her father to visit her."

"So that's why her treatment is financed through the Torchwood funds," the therapist said slowly. Ianto shrugged again.

"That was the least we owed her. She's taken care of, and once Gwen's gone, hopefully she won't have so many relapses."

Dr, Fox didn't feel entirely convinced about that but chose not to argue. Besides, they were running out of time. She'd promised to go with them to the Hub and have the chat with their new, not entirely voluntary recruit.

She put her papers back into the folder and the folder back into the safe. Then she grabbed her car keys.

"Well, Jeannie should be ready by now, and I'm sure that Doctor Harper is getting impatient," she said. "Let's take them and go; I'm eager to meet that newbie of yours."

~TBC~


	6. Chapter 6: A Day in the Hub, Part 2

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

Remember, this is a very different Jeannie McKay than the canon one we got to see in Stargate: Atlantis. Same family, different career choices.

My heartfelt thanks to Linda Hoyland for taking a look at certain problematic parts of this chapter.

**Warning:** some canonically disgusting image near the end of the chapter!

* * *

**Chapter 06 – A Day in the Hub, Part 2**

Jeannie McKay was a bright light hidden under a bushel; had been all her life. Not because she'd have chosen to be but because she was never given any other chance. Having grown up in the shadow of a brilliant, abrasive, socially inept brother who demanded – and promptly got – everyone's attention focused on him, could do that to a person.

That she was born with a genius-level intelligence and put her gift to good use from a very early age didn't count. Rodney had always been just a smidgeon better – and definitely much, much louder. Loud, brilliant, demanding and always getting his way.

Starting off as a shy child, Jeannie had grown into an introverted young woman – not because it was her true nature but because she never had had any other chance. She'd also fought bouts of depression – rather successfully and without any outside help until Canary Wharf – from roughly the age of ten. What would she need a shrink for? She was a genius, she could do the most complicated calculations in her head without even paper and a pencil; science gave her ample opportunities to occupy her mind.

She hadn't become suicidal until her mid-twenties. Until her brother suddenly decided that science was dull, just like his first name, and left to become a world famous concert pianist. He succeeded, of course. He had the talent and the strength of will to excel in whatever he put his mind to.

He switched to using his middle name, and _Meredith_ McKay became the enfant terrible of his generation of talented young musicians. Their parents were shocked and excited about it at the same time. The fact that Jeannie had achieved two different scientific degrees in the meantime went completely unnoticed.

That was when she thought of dying for the first time. Eyeing high rooftops and corrosive chemicals in the kitchen. Flirting with her granddad's cutthroat razor, kept in the bathroom for nostalgic reasons.

No-one ever learned about it, since her flirting with death never actually escalated into self-harm. No-one ever noticed her slow but steady downward slide into darkness. Her parents were too busy with Rodney's – _Meredith's_ – fame. Her brother was totally preoccupied with himself, as usual and her friends… she never really had any. Just people who faked interest as long as they got some advantage through being associated with her – and then dropped her like a hot potato.

The chance to leave all that behind and go to London to work for the government – or so she'd thought back then – came like the last straw for a drowning woman. Caleb was more than willing to cross the pond with her; they'd just married and she was pregnant with Madison, so a separation was out of the question. She liked her work at Torchwood One, it was finally a true challenge, and Caleb was more than happy to play nanny housekeeper for their little daughter. It wasn't so as if he'd have much of a chance to get any other work. The locals had enough English majors of their own; ones that actually spoke their own version of English.

For the first time ever, her life seemed to be on the right path. She should have known it wouldn't last. Good things never did.

She'd just never expected things to go to hell in such a spectacular way.

And yet now, years after Canary Wharf, she was slowly getting back to her feet again. The depression was still there, like a constant, dull ache. It never really left and flared up unexpectedly at the slightest, most ridiculous stimuli. By the layout of a familiar website changing, for example, that made her feel like a complete failure again, until she figured out how to use the re-organized features… and lasted long afterwards.

And then there was the PTSD. She still dreamed of the rotating blades descending towards her, unstoppably. She could feel the searing pain of the impact in her shoulder and woke up with her throat raw from screaming and cold sweat covering her entire body.

And she missed her little daughter terribly. How could Caleb be so cruel? How could he take Madison with him and leave her behind? Small wonder that she couldn't deal with the additional shock and broke down in the middle of an important test, endangering the entire lab and all her colleagues. That cost her the job at UNIT, and all her income, save for the compensation granted to all Canary Wharf survivors.

But she was getting better, slowly, baby step by baby step. Ianto was looking after her and Trevor and Toshiko did their best to cheer her up and Doctor Fox – no, _Emilia_ – was a great help. She liked to work for Torchwood Three, menial though her task was at the moment. She knew that if she made suitable progress, she'd be given more important things to do. She'd be allowed to do true research again.

Ianto had promised, and Ianto _always_ kept his promises. Besides, he was the Torchwood director now, he could make it happen.

She glanced at her wrist watch: it was 11:40. By now, Ianto would have finished physio and had his weekly meeting with Emilia. They would go to the Hub, soon. She was looking forward to it. Work was good, and she'd grown to like her new colleagues, especially Jenny. Under that tough soldier girl exterior Jenny had the peculiar innocence of a young child, despite the memories she carried. She made Jeannie miss Madison just a little less.

Her mobile phone beeped, signalling the incoming text message. It was from Owen.

_Teaboy's ready to go. Don't dawdle. O._ – it said.

Jeannie smiled. Unlike most people, she found the abrasive manners of Owen Harper refreshing. She was sick and tired of people walking on eggshells around her. She might be broken, but she wasn't made of glass.

She looked around to check if she'd forgotten anything. She had a slight tendency to become anal retentive, which was probably one of the reasons why she got on with Ianto so well. Finding everything in proper order, she grabbed her bag and her laptop case and hurried down to the foyer, where Ianto and Owen were already waiting.

* * *

They all got into Dr. Fox' car who drove them back to the Hub. On their way Ianto gave the therapist a brief summary of Adam's story and how he'd ended up several years back in his own past. He made no secret of the fact that he didn't really trust the young man and explained the security measures taken in order to monitor him all the time.

"I doubt that he'd try anything in the next couple of weeks," he added. "I expect him to bid his time; try to lure us into a feeling of false safety. Then, when he thinks that our vigilance has begun to slip, he'll make his move."

"Why are you so sure about that?" Dr. Fox asked.

Ianto gave her a bland smile. "That's what _I'd_ do," he answered simply.

"Yeah, but you're a sneaky bastard," Owen said.

"And he's a certified computer genius," Ianto reminded him. "To underestimate him would be a serious mistake. He may not be able to outsmart Mainframe, but that doesn't mean he couldn't find other opportunities. In fact, he does look like somebody with a _very_ keen eye for opportunity."

"You mean he's greedy and corrupt?" Owen grinned.

Ianto shrugged. "He'd hardly be here otherwise, would he? But who am I to judge him? _My_ reasons to join the Cardiff branch weren't purely altruistic, either, so I'm willing to give him a second chance – if for no other reason than because the _Doctor_ wouldn't. What he makes of it is his choice.

"Does he really have a cybernetic implant in his head?" Jeannie asked, shivering. Ianto shook his head.

"No. He has a cranial interface that enables him to directly download information from computers. Nothing more, nothing less."

"'Cept that it opens up his head in the process, so that you can see his brain through a hole," Owen commented.

"Shut up, Owen!" Ianto hissed angrily, giving Jeannie a concerned glance. She turned a little green as if she was about to get sick. "Jesus, you're such a twat sometimes!"

Owen pulled in his neck. "Sorry. Didn't mean to."

"But you didn't _think_, either, did you?" Ianto returned. Then he squeezed Jeannie's hand gently. "Don't worry. He'll be working with Tosh in the main Hub; you won't even get to see him most of the time. If you do, just remember _not _to click your finger around him and you'll be all right. He isn't so eager to show off that thing, fortunately."

"'Specially as too much usage would fry his brain," Owen muttered.

"Can't we remove the implant?" Jeannie asked, her scientific interest piqued.

Owen shook his head. "'Fraid not. The technology – apparently, it's called picosurgery, whatever _that_'s supposed to be – won't exits until two hundred thousand years in the future, give or take a millennium."

"That's sad," Jeannie said. "I mean, it was stupid of him to gave the thing installed in the first place, but it's always so with boys and shiny new toys. No-one's deserved to lead the life of a pariah for one mistake, no matter how stupid. I mean, he hasn't got anyone killed, has he?"

"No," Ianto admitted, "but that could change, should he fall into the hands of UNIT or MI5 or any other such organization. Like it or not, we must keep him on a _very_ short leash until he can be reintegrated into his own timeline. Luckily, 2013 isn't so far away,"

"Far enough if we'll have to watch him all the time," Owen commented sourly. "I still think a cell next to Janet's would be a better solution."

"If I were you I wouldn't say something like that within Tosh's earshot," Ianto warned. "We're not UNIT and I certainly don't intend to copy their methods. Now, Doctor Fox, if you could just let me out on the Plass I would be grateful. Somehow I don't feel like crawling along all those tunnels right after physio."

* * *

Adam spent the entire morning shift at his desk, checking a colourful mix of extraterrestrial artefacts that had been unceremoniously dumped next to said desk in big crates with the digital database. So far he hadn't found anything that hadn't already been catalogued… or could be in any way useful, save for Andy's alien toaster.

Basically, it was a big heap of alien junk.

"A lot of what we find usually is," Toshiko dismissed his complains with a shrug. "Which is why we've begun to sort out the physical Archives. But from time to time we come across something _really_ big – and then it usually ends badly."

"Why that?" Adam was bewildered. He thought finding something _big_ was a good thing. Mr Van Statten certainly thought so.

"Because our world isn't ready to deal with technology hundreds or thousands of years ahead of us," Toshiko replied grimly. "Haven't you learned anything from your encounter with the Dalek? Can't you imagine what a doomsday weapon from the future – or alien technology that would enable us to build one – could do in the hands of terrorists? Or even in the hands of our own, potentially trigger-happy military?"

"Well… I never thought about it that way," Adam confessed sheepishly.

"Then you should perhaps begin to grow up and think about it," she said, returning to her own work.

And for the rest of the morning Adam did think about that indeed, realising for the first time that by all his wealth and genius, Mr Van Statten was just a clueless amateur who was endangering the whole planet, right at the moment. In fact, his own younger self was busily helping the man with building up the catastrophe that would occur in 2012. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

At least the people at Torchwood were professionals who knew they were dealing with potentially dangerous stuff. Well, _this_ bunch appeared to. If he remembered correctly, the London branch had screwed up monumentally, to.

Around 10 a.m. they had a break and were served coffee and scones by an elegant black woman the others called Beth. She apparently ran the cover shop – some kind of tourist information shack that hid the other entrance of the Hub – and helped to file moderately confidential stuff. She was chatting with Emma amiably enough, and Adam figured out from their conversation that she was married and her husband, some bloke named Mike, had been a colleague of Rhys, before Rhys would come to work for Torchwood.

Captain Harkness and Jenny were markedly absent all morning. Adam remembered Emma saying something at breakfast about them working on Jenny's ship and was dying to learn what sort of ship _that_ might be.

"A rather wrecked one," Toshiko replied when he finally brought up the courage to ask. "We're trying to patch it together again, but even a spaceship of Raxacoricofallapatorian design gets battered if shot at by high-energy laser weapons."

For a moment Adam was absolutely speechless. He opened and closed his mouth several time, painfully aware of the impression he must be making: that of a dumbfounded goldfish.

"A _spaceship_?" he finally creaked in an embarrassingly high-pitched voice. "She's got an _alien spaceship_?"

Toshiko shrugged. "Well, she's an alien, after all."

Had she suddenly grown a second head it couldn't have shocked Adam more. "A-an _alien_? She's a bloody _alien_?"

Toshiko shrugged again. "As I said, all sorts of things – and people – fall through the Rift. And not all aliens look like the little green men from those silly 1950s American films. You should know best; you used to travel with one yourself."

"But-but she looks so _normal_!" Adam protested. "Like any other girl next door. Sure, she's a soldier, a blind man could see _that_. But aside from the military stance…"

"And yet she comes from such a far corner of our universe that not even our databases have anything about the place… not _yet_ anyway," Toshiko replied. "That's the Rift for you. Our end of it is fixed here, under Cardiff – the other one jumps around erratically in space and time. That's why it has to be watched continually."

"Can't you simply close it altogether?" Adam asked. "I would save you a shitload of pain."

"I wish we could," Toshiko sighed, "but that would be a task beyond even the Doctor's abilities. It's a natural phenomenon; and while we may have a very small measure of control through the Rift Manipulator, which also helps us predict activity along the Rift, we can't close it any more than we could, say, stop a hurricane. It's both unpredictable and highly volatile."

Adam frowned at that. "But doesn't that mean that we – this entire base, your whole team – are sitting atop a ticking bomb?"

"Oh, yes, it does," Toshiko answered seriously. "But, unlike other people, we are at least aware of that fact."

"What do you mean _other people_?" Adam asked.

"The Rift can take you from anywhere – or _anywhen_," Toshiko explained. "Look at Emma: she boarded a plane in Bristol, back in the 1950s, and an hour or so alter she landed in Cardiff, two years ago. She managed to fit in; her travelling companions didn't. One committed suicide, the other one, the pilot, fled through the Rift, God only knows where."

She paused, allowing the information to sink in and the shock to settle a bit before continuing. "So, you see, you ain't the only temporally displaced person here. Luckily for you, at least you only have to wait a few years for a fix. Emma is trapped here for good, as we can't change the past."

For the second time in just a few minutes Adam was completely baffled. That the Torchwood director's prim and proper little secretary had made an accidental jump of half a century in time was too weird to believe. And yet it explained a lot about her somewhat stilted behaviour and occasionally outdated speech patterns. Of course she would sound strange if she mentally still lived in the 1950s!

"She seems to have adapted to our time well enough, though," he said, remembering with such practiced ease Emma had handled the alien-enhanced PDA and other high-tech gizmos during his interview.

Toshiko nodded. "She and Rhys were made for each other. She couldn't have fit in without Rhys, and Rhys wouldn't get over his ex half so fast without her – and they take care of us as if we were their kids, not their colleagues."

"Which she could be, age-wise, had she not fallen through that Rift of yours," Adam said thoughtfully. "This is… really weird."

"This is Torchwood," Toshiko replied. "_Weird _doesn't even begin to describe it," she glanced up at the direction of the cog door as the alarm klaxons started blaring and the orange lights blinking. "Oh, I see Mickey's back to feed the menagerie."

Adam blinked in surprise. "You've got animals down here?"

"Not exactly; but not every alien is friendly or harmless… or particularly sentient," Toshiko explained. "Those who are clearly non-sentient and don't represent a threat – like those spidery mouse things Jack hates so much – we pass on to an alien zoo, run by an old acquaintance of us. For friendly sentients we find places where they can blend in, or at least hide safely. But there are some that are hostile or dangerous – those we simply keep here. Either in cryogenic suspension or in the cells."

"Why don't you simply kill them?" Adam asked.

"Sometimes we do," Toshiko admitted. "If there's no other chance; when it's clear that they've come with the express intention to harm us. But if they ended up here by accident, like the Weevils…" she shrugged.

"The _Weevils_?" Adam repeated, frowning.

"Well, that's how we call them," Toshiko said. "We don't know what they call themselves… we ain't even sure that they can actually _speak_ at all," she called over to Mickey. "Hey, Mickey, why don't you take Adam down to the cells and introduce him to Janet?"

Mickey shot them a doubtful look. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

Dr. Milligan looked up from his computer where he'd been studying something… _weird_ on the screen. "He'll get a glimpse of the Weevils sooner or later. Ianto said he can move around freely within the base. It's better if he does it under… erm… controlled circumstances. Less chance for him to freak out completely."

"Admit it, you can't wait to see him faint," Mickey grinned.

"Or hear him scream like a girl," Emma added, reappearing from the Archives at the very moment with another crate of alien junk, which she dropped next to Adam's desk.

Adam looked from one to another in bewilderment. "Is this some kind of weird initiation ritual?"

Dr. Milligan nodded. "In a way… yeah, it is. We all had to go through it, one way or another, so why should you have it better? Besides, it gives us the chance to bet again. I say he'll scream," he looked around. "Any takers?"

"Scream," Emma agreed. "That's what I did, and he does have a girlish air about him."

"Faint," Mickey said. "Or swoon, at the very least. He seems to be the fainting type."

Toshiko shook her head. "I don't know, Mickey. He survived a Dalek on the rampage."

"That's a different matter," Mickey argued. "C'me on, Tosh, faint or scream? Or maybe he'll take the crying option, like Owen."

"_That_ was hay fever," Toshiko laughed, clearly not believing it herself.

"That's what _Owen_ says," Mickey countered, grinning like a loon, "and we both know it wasn't true. So, what's your bet?"

"All right, all right," Toshiko considered the options for a moment. "Swoon," she finally decided.

"Two to two," Dr. Milligan summarised. "Okay, we still need Lloyd's vote," he came up from the medical area and knocked on the door of the DNA lab briefly. "Sara, you have a moment?"

The tall blonde in the white lab coat looked out in concern. "Is something wrong?"

Dr. Milligan shook his head. "Nah, Weevil test. What's your vote? Faint, scream or cry like a baby?"

Dr. Lloyd gave Adam a measuring look. "I think he'll throw up," she said.

"That's not one of the usual reactions," Dr. Milligan reminded her, but she just shrugged.

"There's a first time for everything. Anyway, that's my vote and I stick to it. Ten quid as usual?"

"Twenty," Mickey said promptly. "Since a new option has been added to the mix, the chances to win the pot have been limited," he took a twenty-pound bill from his pocket and handed it to Emma. "The winner pays the first round in the next pub night."

"I thought winning a bet should be good for the _winner_," Dr. Milligan protested, but he was laying his bet at the same time. "A round for the whole team would cost more than the pot itself."

"Not for the whole team," Mickey clarified. "Just for us. It will be a small celebration."

"I'm in," Toshiko handed her own twentier to Emma. "Hurry up before the others would arrive. It's more fun this way. We'll watch you on the CCTV."

"I thought there weren't cameras on the sublevels," Dr. Milligan said in surprise.

"There are none in the _Archives_," Toshiko corrected. "The cells have always been monitored, for security reasons. Well, Mickey, what are you waiting for?"

"Yeah, you guys should hurry up," Dr. Milligan said. "The others are on their way; if they arrive too soon, we'll have to share."

"That would be a real shame," Mickey agreed; then he grinned at Adam. "C'mon, Adam, be a man – that's something everyone has to go through. I'll buy you a drink afterwards."

"Where?" Adam asked sceptically. "I'm restricted to the base, remember?"

Mickey waved off his concerns. "I'll bring you one. Now, man it up and let's go."

* * *

The others gathered around the CCTV screen to watch Mickey and Adam ride the lift down to the sublevel where the cells were situated. Adam himself was more than a little nervous; he couldn't even begin to imagine what he was about to see. As much as he was aware of the existence of extraterrestrial life, he doubted that he could really face aliens that had made these tough Torchwood agents either faint or scream by the mere sight of them.

Mickey led him down the same tunnels that would lead to his own temporary lodging, only that at one point he turned into a different direction and down another trail of stairs. There they passed through a heavy metal door and ended up on a corridor lined with concrete cells, bared by glass doors with round holes in them.

Quite a few of the cells were empty. But some of them were occupied by strange creatures, roughly the size of grown men, wearing… identical jumpsuits?"

"Why do they wear clothes?" Adam asked. "And why coveralls?"

"Camouflage," Mickey explained. "They live in the sewers, and this way, if they come to the surface, people who see them from afar won't panic at once. Of course, when they come closer, that's a wholly different matter."

"Why?"

"Cause then they can see the faces," Mickey hauled Adam in front of the first inhabited cell, so that he was staring directly into the flat, wrinkled, sallow face of the bald-headed creature.

The Weevil bared its teeth; there was such untamed wildness and so much malice in its dark eyes that it made Adam's stomach hurl up to his throat.

"Oh, my God," he moaned. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

He backed away from the cell until he hit the opposite wall with his back and wretched. Mickey and the others around the CCTV monitor watched with morbid fascination a vomit coloured ice-cube pop out of his mouth. Adam took it between his fingers, looked around, found a metal bin and dropped the cube into the bin with a resounding _clang_.

"What the hell was _that_?" Mickey demanded, looking close to becoming sick himself.

"Vomit-o-matic," Adam explained with a shrug. "I got it installed at the same time as the infospike; it was a special offer. Basically, they placed nano-termites in the lining of my throat. In case I get sick, t hey freeze the waste."

Mickey frowned. "You mean you can't even get sick properly? Man, that sucks."

Adam looked at him in surprise. "Why? It's a lot more hygienic this way – until the ice melts, that is."

"Yeah, but a lot less cathartic," Mickey commented. He waved in the Weevil's direction. "This is Barry, by the way. He's new here. Got him in a couple o' days ago, cause he was attacking people in Bute Park. Those who show aggressive behaviour we won't herd back to the sewers like we do with the rest."

"Which one is the oldest lodger?" Adam asked.

"That would be Janet, at the end of the corridor, but we ain't supposed to bother her," Mickey explained. "Jenny's working with her and had made considerable progress, so we won't interfere with that. C'mon, let's go back up."

* * *

They returned to the main Hub Area, where Adam got pestered with a thousand questions about the vomit-o-matic; questions that he couldn't really answer, to everyone's regret. The performance at the cells earned him the questionable pleasure of Dr. Milligan taking several tissue samples from the lining of his throat, until he finally caught one with nano-termites in it… which Toshiko and Lloyd promptly confiscated and triumphantly vanished with it in one of the labs.

By then, Captain Harkness and Jenny returned, and so did Director Jones with Dr. Harper, their shrink and a harrowed blonde woman whom they called Jeannie and who kept staring at Adam as if expecting him to grow a second head any minute. She'd clearly been told about the infospike and was clearly afraid of seeing it in action.

Well, Adam wasn't so eager to show it off, either, so that was fine with him.

To his surprise, the entire team had lunch together in the conference room – some home-made sandwiches, courtesy of Emma, baked over in the microwave – and then the morning shift went off-duty… officially, at least. In fact, Emma was the only one to actually leave, after having filled the dishwasher and started the programme. The others all stayed, for one reason or another; mostly to work on personal projects.

Director Jones checked Adam's computer and seemed content with the work he'd done so far.

"One sees that you've got some experience with this kind of work," he said, "Keep doing so, and after your trial period we might let you onto the really interesting stuff. Now, are the items in these crates all identified?"

Adam nodded. "Those on the left are already in the database, labelled as harmless and mostly useless. Those on the right are also identified as harmless items of potential use, like Andy's toaster. The few on the desk are not in the Archives; I haven't gotten to the rest yet."

"You've done more than enough for one day," the Torchwood director said. "There's no pressure. We've got enough junk to last for several lifetimes; I don't expect you to get through all of it in days. Earlier Torchwood teams tended to host stuff unnecessarily. If you can work your way through the last two years' founds it will be a relief. At least the physical Archives won't become even more cluttered than they already are."

"Do you want me to get the stuff I'm finished with down there again, Mr. Jones?" Adam asked, burning with curiosity what else might have been stored in the Vaults. Perhaps he could find his little personal teleportation device, eventually.

As if reading his thoughts, the Torchwood director smiled blandly.

"Ianto would do; we're roughly the same age, after all, and I'm not your boss. Just leave the stuff here. They won't go back to the Archives; we're gonna melt the junk to recycle the metal and put the useful things… well, to good use."

"What am I to do with the rest of my day them?" Adam was a bit disappointed but not overly so. He hadn't really expected them to grant him access to the restricted areas right away. His time would come.

"You've been scheduled to have a session with Doctor Fox in…" Director Jones – no, _Ianto_ – glanced at his watch, "exactly twenty-six minutes. After that, your time is your own. You can use the digital database to learn. Or you can read; we've got a virtual library of e-books, as well as a broad selection of films and TV-shows on DVD. Or you can go online if that's what you want. It's up to you."

"What if I want to continue with the alien junk?" Adam asked. He actually _liked_ playing around with the stuff.

Ianto shrugged. "You can do that, too, of course. I'm afraid it will become deadly boring all too soon. But you can always stop after your shift if you've had enough. Now go and see Doctor Fox while the rest of us deals with the joys of paperwork – Rift permitting."

~TBC~


	7. Chapter 7: The Enigmatic Mr Parker

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

Obviously, the whole pseudo-science is being made up as I go. I'm just filling the holes left by the screenwriters.

* * *

**Chapter 07 – The Enigmatic Mr Parker**

In the next couple of weeks Adam's life settled into a predictable – and somewhat dull – routine. He worked his hours during morning shift, rested in the afternoon (as Director Jones, no, _Ianto_ had predicted, the thrill of dealing with alien stuff again burned out quickly enough) and spent a few hours with the graveyard shift each night, learning the functioning of the Hub or studying old cases.

The amount of knowledge stored in the digital database was mind-blowing, even for a certified genius like him.

By now, he was on first name basis with almost everyone, with the exception of Lloyd (because _nobody_ was foolish enough to call her Sara, save Tom Milligan, from whom she, surprisingly enough, tolerated it) and the ever-nervous Dr. McKay. He got along well enough with the entire team, but it was the graveyard shift he'd become closest with.

Like him, Sally and Trevor suffered from insomnia, so they understood if he couldn't stay in his room – a new, larger and much improved one – alone and didn't protest against his presence in the main working area. Ex-PC Andy was a friendly, all-around good guy by nature, and they had lots of fun together. Perhaps the only one never being traumatised by alien encounters (unless being _almost_ eaten by a Nostrovite counted), Andy had the most positive outlook on life and an infectious good mood most of the time.

Rift activity had been low-key in those weeks. There had been barely any Rift alerts, and the only things coming through had been random pieces of harmless junk. The only real thing they had to deal with were the Weevil sightings – and during such an occasion Adam finally got a step closer to his goal.

It was an otherwise quiet night, one of several such nights in a row. Even workaholics like Lloyd, Tom Milligan and Toshiko had gone home by ten o'clock, and Captain Harkness was off to London with Ianto to meet certain people from high places. Owen, being on call, was sleeping in one of the restrooms on Sublevel One, and Adam was absently watching TV on his laptop when the alert came in.

They were having a midnight snack – either Rhys or Emma always saw to it that the night shift was left with a well-stocked fridge – when a sudden incessant beeping interrupted the quiet background noises of the Hub. Sally put down her ice cream hastily and moved to one of the several screens at her desk.

"Weevil," she said with a quick glance. "Multiple sightings. Fortunately, they're both in Bute Park; but we'll still need two teams."

"What is it with Weevils and Bute Park anyway?" Trevor muttered. "We've just picked up whatshisface, Barry, a few weeks ago, and now there are two of them again?"

"Major sewer entrance," Andy, the man with the best local knowledge, replied. "I'll wake Owen."

"He's not gonna thank you," Trevor commented.

Sally chewed at her bottom lip for a moment. "Two Weevils… we'll all have to go out if we want to contain them in time."

"Can't," Trevor said. "We need you to direct us."

"No, you don't need _me_," Sally looked at Adam. "Are you familiar with CCTV tracking?"

Adam shook his head apologetically. "Afraid not. Never did anything like that."

"Doesn't matter; it's easy enough to learn," Sally tapped quickly away at her keyboard. "You just sit here and follow us through the CCTV network. We'll be in contact through our comm links. All you have to do is to tell us if the Weevils move. I'm sure something with your computer skills can manage."

Adam shrugged. "If you think so. Show me how it's done."

Sally waved him closer while highlighting the positions of the Weevils on one screen and opening another to the network. Then she fished one of those Torchwood-issue earpieces from her desk drawer and tossed it to Adam.

"Put this on. Tap once to activate and twice to close," she instructed him.

Adam placed the comm link in his ear, maneuvering it into a comfortable position, and then tapped it once to see if it was working.

"All clear," he confirmed.

"Good," Sally said. "See that you keep in touch all the time. If the Weevils change position, or if some idiot walks straight into their path, tell us at once. You'll have to watch both teams and coordinate us, since we won't see each other, and alert the other team if one runs into trouble."

"O-kay," Adam swallowed nervously as he looked from one screen to the other and back again.

"You'll be fine," Trevor encouraged him. "It's easier than it sounds. I hate to throw you into deep water without any previous experience, but with Jonesy and the captain in London we can't leave one of us behind."

"I'll try my best," Adam promised, and in that moment he genuinely meant it.

Only when they left through the tunnel leading to the garage did he recognize the golden opportunity they'd just handed him on a platter.

* * *

He settled himself in Sally's chair and watched them on the screen as they got into the SUV, Trevor bickering with Owen who clearly didn't like being waked up – _or_ the idea of leaving Adam back in the Hub alone. The doctor was clearly a suspicious bastard; Adam made a mental note to be doubly careful around him. Even so, he was _not_ willing to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. There might not come another one for a long time.

"Adam, can you see us?" Sally's voice echoed in his ear, and he nodded, momentarily forgetting that she couldn't see him.

Realizing his mistake, he tapped his comm link.

"Yeah, I see you," he said quickly.

"All right," Sally sounded relieved. "The system tracks us automatically, so you should be able to locate us any time. What you need is to keep checking on the Weevils. They might decide to take a walk, and there are always blind spots."

"What if I lose them?" Adam asked nervously.

"Don't," Sally prompted. "You can move the cameras with mouse or keyboard controls, should they actually move on from their current positions. Make sure you keep them in sight."

"I'll try," Adam replied, playing a little with the basic functions of the tracking system, just because he could.

Oh, this was good! More than good, actually; this was pure gold!

Having already memorized the position of the CCTV cameras watching the main Hub itself, he shifted in his chair just a little bit, so that his body would screen his hands and his forehead would be obscured. Then he clicked his fingers.

The infospike emerged, downloading the tracking patterns and all other available information from the security system within nanoseconds and covering its activities at the same time, via a highly effective and virtually undetectable little Trojan it left behind.

Adam suppressed a smile. The Torchwood gang was good, their equipment high-end by twenty-first century standards, but the piece of technology in _his_ head was two hundred millennia ahead of them. No matter what Toshiko thought, Adam was sure that not even their sentient supercomputer would be able to find out his little sabotage easily. Not for a while anyway; and if he kept behaving unobtrusively they'd never suspect anything – until it was too late.

Had Ianto or Captain Harkness – Adam still hadn't find it him to call the man Jack – been in Cardiff, he'd probably reconsidered such a stunt. Especially Ianto seemed to have an almost uncanny knowledge about whatever happened at the base at any given time. And Captain Harkness still made Adam nervous. His obvious disdain towards him was unpleasantly reminiscent of that of the Doctor's, and Adam always tried to be at his best behaviour around him.

Fortunately, they were both off-town at the moment, and Toshiko – the only one with a vague idea about Adam's computer skills and what his infospike could do – was off-duty. This chance couldn't have come at a better time.

"Have the Weevils moved?" Sally's voice interrupted his thoughts, and he blinked to re-focus on the screen.

"No, they're still where they were," he told her and hurriedly closed the infospike, staving off a sudden wave of restless anxiety and even a touch of guilt.

That had been close.

In the next forty minutes he had to concentrate really hard. It was the usual catch-and-release mission, with using the suppressing spray on the Weevils, checking them for subcutaneous tracking chips and then herding them back to the sewers, but keeping an eye on both teams simultaneously and watching out for any potential dangers gave him a headache.

Unless _that_ was a result of using the infospike, of course. But it had been worth it.

"Ours is untagged," he heard Owen's sour voice. "A male, according to his pronounced spine ridge. Seems fairly young, too; bone and muscle density is less than by a fully grown specimen."

"Ours is male, too, but already in the system," Andy replied. "He's been tagged… wow! Back in 2000? This is the oldest one I've ever heard of!"

"It was Jack who invented the whole tagging method when he took over Torchwood Three," Owen explained. "Before him, Weevils were simply shot by sight. That's why we have no data from earlier, save for some random autopsy reports, although the first sightings go back as far as the early 1930s."

"In any case, they don't show any aggressive reactions," Sally said. "Let's send them home and return to the Hub."

They were done and back within another twenty minutes, with pizza and beer to celebrate a job well done.

"I'll add the new Weevil to the system," Sally said. "Whose turn is to write up the report?"

Three pairs of eyes turned pointedly to Owen who pulled a disgusted face.

"I wish Teaboy weren't so obsessed with those sodding reports," he groused. "We did just fine without them under Harkness. Who the fuck cares how many Weevils we sent back to their stinking sewers anyway?"

"_Jonesy_ does," Trevor reminded him. "Besides, with his new registration system you don't have to actually _write_ any reports. You just fill out the required fields with the data and can be done within ten minutes, tops."

"Unless you dawdle around whining about having to do it," Andy pointed out, grinning.

"Well, why don't _you_ do it, if it's so fucking easy?" Owen scowled.

"Cos it ain't _my_ turn," Andy replied easily. "I had to do all the paperwork for Gwen while we were with the police. I've sworn never to let people cajole me into it again."

The others laughed and finished theirs hare of beer and pizza – home-made meals were nice and good, but sometimes one simply needed a little junk food – while Owen sat at his computer and typed up the very short report with a murderous expression on his face. Adam, sitting a little apart as always, nursed his own lager, his mind awhirl with ideas how he could use what he'd learned from the security system for his advantage, should it become necessary in the (hopefully) near future.

* * *

Two days later Jack and Ianto returned from London, late in the night. They were remarkably tight-lipped about the trip. Even at the meeting in the next morning they only told the others that they'd done some research on Colonel Oduya – which has resulted in nigh to nothing so far – and called in some old favours to get some dangerous stuff moved from where it had been collecting dust in remote warehouses once owned by Torchwood London. In that, at least, they'd proved successful.

Ianto prepared his legendary orgasmic coffee on the ancient copper-and-chrome machine no-one else was allowed to touch because, as he put it, he needed his own brew after the last two days. Then he took his usual chair at the conference table and gave the others an expectant look.

"So, what have we missed?"

"Not much," Tosh replied. "There's been only one Weevil sighting – a double one in Bute Park – but the night shift dealt with them most efficiently."

"Any Rift activity?" Jack asked. Tosh shook her head.

"None. Everything was quiet during your absence. Well, _almost_ everything."

Ianto's eyebrow climbed to his hairline. "Details, please."

Tosh showed him a diagram on one of her many screens. "Look at this. I detected it at 5:17 this morning."

Jack leaned over to get a better look. "It seems awfully like an energy spike," he commented.

Tosh nodded. "My thoughts exactly. I've never seen anything like it before. But it definitely doesn't come from the Rift."

"Where does it come from then?" Ianto frowned as he was watching the screen.

Tosh connected her laptop to the big screen and called up the city map of Cardiff to lay it over the energy readings.

"Apparently, it comes from the Parker house… well, estate would be a better word for it," she sounded surprised. "What could Mr Parker be up again?"

Jack's face split into a big, blinding white grin. "Good old Henry John Parker. What a looked he used to be sixty-some years ago… or was it more?"

Owen pulled a disgusted face. "You're a sick man, Harkness!" he said.

Jack shrugged. "Well, he's eighty-odd now; even I have my limits."

"Yeah, sure," Ianto muttered. But the look he gave Jack was one of fond exasperation, not one of real anger.

"So, who _is_ this Mr Parker?" Trevor asked in the name of all Torchwood newbies.

All those _not_ from Cardiff, that is.

"Your basic millionaire collector of alien hoo-hah," Jack explained, not very helpfully.

"Sounds like that Van Statten bloke Adam used to work for… will work for… whatever," Andy commented, but Jack shook his head.

"Not really. He hasn't tried to take over the world or the government… or the internet," he glanced at Ianto. "Didn't we file him in the 'mostly harmless' category?"

"We did," Ianto agreed," but categories change according to the situation. Right now, the big question is, what's our Mr. Parker gone and found this time?"

"Why?" Adam asked. "Do you think he's a threat?"

The others looked at him in surprise, apparently having forgotten about his presence. It was an awkward moment, even though – in theory – he _was_ supposed to be on the morning briefings.

"He hasn't been up until now," Ianto finally answered. "He's a bit like Howard Hughes, in fact. We know he's there, we know he's not a threat, but that's basically all you can know about him. He hasn't left the house since his wife died. Nobody's seen him since 1986."

Adam was a tad baffled, imagining someone not having set a foot outside his house since he was three year old. But millionaires tended to be odd at the best of times. Mr. Van Statten was the best proof for that.

"Wow!' Tom Milligan whistled. "That's a long time. Do you know why he's turned into a hermit?"

Ianto shook his head. "Not really. According to Idris Hopper at the City Hall, he's got some kind of medical condition, but nobody knows for sure. He values his privacy and has enough money to ensure that his wishes are respected."

"And now an unknown sort of alien energy pulse is coming from his house," Jack said slowly. "I think it's time to check our enigmatic Mr Parker out a little more thoroughly, ain't it?"

"What for?" Owen shrugged. "We've been monitoring him for ages. There's nothing to be scared of, is there?"

"That's what we're trying to ascertain," Ianto replied tiredly. "Tosh, can you get me a complete schematic of the house?"

Tosh gave him the wounded look of a woman who'd been unjustly accused of incompetence. "Of course!"

"Good," Ianto turned to Adam. "Try to find out exactly what he's got. Get me an inventory of everything that he's bought over the last ten years."

Adam nodded mutely, his mind racing along the virtual pathways of the internet he'd have to follow. Ianto looked at Owen.

"Can you get a hold of his medical history? Sally can help you hack into his files if necessary."

"Sure," Owen's eyes gleamed with excitement. He'd missed a good challenge for quite some time.

"All right," Ianto grabbed his cane and rose. "Let's get to it. I've got another round of physio this morning, but we'll continue when I come back."

"I can drive you," Andy offered. "You should rest that leg of yours after half the night on the train."

"And I'll fetch you and Jeannie afterwards," Jack said. "Rift permitting."

"If not, we'll call a cab," Ianto replied. "Okay, people, meeting adjourned."

* * *

Six hours and a shared lunch later they were together in the conference room again, continuing where they'd left things in the morning. This time Jenny was joining them, too, as her knowledge about alien technology could come in handy.

"So, Adam," Ianto said while Emma served them all coffee, "what have you found out about our Mr. Parker?"

"I've identified some of the things he's purchased over the past year," Adam called up the pictures of various alien artefacts from the digital database and displayed them on the big screen on the wall. "We've got a Dogon eye, a pair of Myakian wings, some meteorites, an Arcateenian translation of James Herbert's _The Fog_, strangely enough…"

"Not so strange, actually," Jack said. "Arcateenians have an avid interest in all kinds of literature, including horror stories. What else?"

"There _are_ a few other things," Adam replied, "but those were not in the database. Neither have I seen any of them in Mr. Van Statten's collection, and I know _that_ one well enough."

"So, apparently, one of the unknown items is causing the energy spikes," Ianto concluded.

Tosh nodded. "Looks like it, yeah. And they're getting bigger, dangerously bigger."

"Which means that we need to get in there and retrieve the… whatever it is," Jack said. "Do we know anything about security measures? Millionaires tend to be rather paranoid about their safety."

"I've talked to Detective Swanson and she gave me some details," Andy said. "It seems Mr. Parker employs a certain Philip Farrington to run security; and Mr. Farrington is an experienced professional who doesn't do things by halves."

"You mean he runs a tight ship?" Jack asked and Andy nodded.

"Yep. There are at least six guards, at any given time."

"What about monitoring?" Sally injected.

"CCTV everywhere, but that isn't the problem, "Andy replied. "We can bring them all down by taking out the generator. The real problem is these," he pointed at some blinks on the screen. "Heat sensors."

"As in body heat?" Tom Milligan clarified. Andy nodded again."

"Yep. Solar-powered. There's one on every doorway, every window."

"So, how do we get past them?" Ianto asked.

"Sounds like we need a dead man," Owen commented with a crooked smile. "Someone with no body heat at all."

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Very funny, Owen."

"No, actually that's brilliant!" Trevor exclaimed. "The nano-termites! That's the solution!"

Jack, Ianto and Owen, who hadn't been there during the vomit-o-matic incident two days previously, exchanged confused looks. Jenny had also been absent, but at least she knew what Trevor was talking about.

"You've got nano-termites here?" he asked in surprise.

"Adam's got them in the lining of his throat," Trevor explained. We could try to reprogram them, so that they'd lower his body temperature to a level where the heat sensors can't pick him up."

"And make me die from hypothermia?" Adam protested.

Nobody listened to him, excited by the possibility as they were. Only Jack was eyeing Trevor doubtfully.

"You can actually do that?"

"Hey, I used to work for Cybernetics at One!" Trevor returned, a little indignantly. "If Jenny and Toshiko help me, together I'm sure we can manage."

"We should run a few tests…" Tosh trailed off, her mind weighing the probabilities against each other.

"We'll need a few samples for that," Owen reminded her.

"We already have," Lloyd said. "They're in Tom's lab. We've been poking at them for the last two day. They're highly efficient little buggers, I must say."

"We should be able to increase their output, so that they'd cool him down enough to fool the heat sensors," Jenny was just this side of jumping up and down in her impatience to finally get started with it.

"Don't I have a say in this?" Adam was getting more and more annoyed by the minute. "It's _my_ body temperature we're talking about, after all."

"Later," Ianto waved him off. "Would someone please tell me what the hell nano-termites are? Cos I never heard of them before."

"Sorry, Jonesy," Trevor quickly summarized for him the vomit-o-matic incident and what they'd found out about the microscopic robots during the last two days.

Ianto took it all in a stride. He was a Torchwood Archivist, after all. A Torchwood Archivist whose system was swarming with nanogenes.

"I see," he said calmly. "And you're _absolutely_ sure you can reprogram them? _Without_ endangering Adam's life?"

"We can run tests on Jack's favourite spidery mice," Lloyd suggested. "_And_ on Barry the Weevil, since we've been planning to freeze him anyway. Between the two species, we should be able to calculate the right level of cold output for an average human."

"How long would you need for that?" Ianto asked.

Lloyd, Tom and Trevor exchanges questioning looks, then the doctor shrugged.

"With help… a week perhaps. Two weeks, tops."

"That might take too long," Jack warned. "We need a Plan B, in case we have to interfere sooner."

Ianto nodded in agreement. "Work out one. In the meantime, we need more data. I want every detail about the security measures of Mr. Parker's house. _Including_ a complete background check on each and every security guard working there. We must know what we'll be dealing with."

"Excuse me," Adam injected with exaggerated politeness, "but I can't remember agreeing to become your guinea pig… _or_ your burglar."

Ianto gave him a bland look. "We can't force you to do it, of course. There are considerable risks involved; therefore it must be your decision. Should you choose to work with us on this case, however – and _succeed_! – I'll consider hiring you as a freelance agent until 2013, with the usual wages. Which, if I may point out, are quite handsome."

"Which would be of little use me as a frozen corpse," Adam returned. Ianto nodded.

"That's certainly true. As I said, there _are_ considerable risks involved. On the other hand, I can't imagine that you'd rather spend your days restricted to the Hub until your time with us runs out."

"C'mon, mate!" Andy said encouragingly. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I seem to have permanently misplaced it," Adam replied dryly. "Suddenly, general boredom seems quite attractive. Even if you hired me, I could never lead a normal life again. Not with this thing in my head."

"That's true," Ianto admitted. "Very well. Plan B it is, then; assuming Jack can come up with one that would work."

"Wait," Adam said. "I didn't way I won't do it, did I? I'm just… I haven't decided yet, okay? Gimme some more time; your people can play with the nano-termites until I make up my mind."

Ianto exchanged a look with Jack, who shrugged. "Works for me."

"We'll still need that Plan B," Ianto warned him. "No matter what Adam's choice would be, there's still the possibility that the idea with the nano-termites won't work; and we need to get that energy pulse, no matter what."

"In which case you'll need to inform Kathy Swanson, so that the police can look the other way when we break into the Parker house," Jack pointed out.

"I'm gonna inform her anyway," Ianto glanced at his watch. "We've got a meeting in fifty-three minutes."

"Shall I drive you?" Jack offered, but Ianto shook his head.

"Nah, I'll walk. We're gonna meet in the _Mermaid's Dream_, just across the Plass; a little casual walk would be good for me after that sodding physio. Well, people, you all know what to do – so do your jobs. I'll be back again in, say, another two hours."

"So much to discuss with Kathy?" Jack teased. "Should I be jealous? You spend an awful lot of time in her company."

Ianto rolled his eyes. "It's called public relations, Jack; keeping good contacts with the local authorities. It might surprise you, but it's more efficient in the long run than pissing them off every time."

"Yeah, but not half as much fun," Jack grinned unrepentantly.

Ianto released a long-suffering sigh. "You're hopeless. Try not to destroy morale any more while I'm off to that meeting, will you?"

* * *

The _Mermaid's Dream_ was one of the older, more traditional-looking pubs near Roald Dahl Plass. It wasn't Ianto's preferred watering hole, but one he'd use to meet his contacts, because it wasn't very flashy and it was fairly quiet in the afternoon, so they could have some privacy.

It was a rather run-down place, with wood panelling on the walls, everything coloured in brown and beige; a bit boring-looking, actually. There were only a few people drinking in the other booths and talking in low tones, and someone playing on the flashing slot machine behind them. Definitely not a place where a lady of true class would go on her own, but it matched their purposes perfectly.

Ianto reached the pub a little before Kathy Swanson and was already nursing a lager when the detective slid into the booth opposite him, putting down her own pint on the scarred surface of the table and removing her suit jacket. She looked supremely elegant, as always, Ianto found; he told her so.

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly and took a sip of her drink.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Jones; you should know that by now," she said. "So, what's up? You look tired. Rough day?"

"Just physio, actually," Ianto replied with a half-hearted shrug. "Though after a long ride on the night train it was something I could have lived without. Sometimes I really wonder if I'll ever be able to use the damn leg properly again."

She didn't come up with any of the fake reassurances other people seemed so fond of, and for that, Ianto was grateful. Sometimes he just wanted to _feel_ bad about his situation, without being forcibly comforted, and she appeared to be the only one to understand that.

"What's new on the spooky front, then?" she asked, changing the topic.

"Unknown energy source in Mr. Parker's house," he cut to the core at once; even through the relatively low noise level of the pub, they could speak freely. "It's spiking in irregular intervals, at a higher energy level each time. We'll have to… erm… _retrieve_ it before it becomes a threat."

"Is it dangerous?" Swanson asked, narrowing her eyes.

Ianto shrugged. "Not yet, but it might become alter. Fact is, we can't tell before we got our hands on the source and studied it."

"Too bad," she said dryly. "I doubt Mr. Parker would meekly hand the thing over to you."

"We don't intend to actually _ask_," Ianto answered with his customary bland smile. "We'll try stealth first. If it doesn't work, I'll have to let Jack do it his way – and that's gonna be anything but subtle."

That was certainly the understatement of the month, and Swanson closed her eyes for a moment, her imagination running amok with her, presenting the most unpleasant images of Jack Harkness on a rampage.

"Let's hope your plan works, then," she said. "Breaking into the Parker residence and taking something the old man paid lots of money for by force would cause a scandal not even Torchwood could afford."

"You know I'm not into Jack's grand statements, but it happens to be the fact that Torchwood only answers to the Crown," Ianto reminded her mildly.

"That may be so," she replied, "but you know as much as I do that there's _one_ power that's greater than even the Crown's, and that's money. You don't piss off a millionaire who could buy the entire town from her vest pocket if he felt like it."

"It's not my intention to piss off Mr Parker," Ianto said, "but I can't let him keep a potentially dangerous alien energy source in his house. So far, all he's purchased was harmless junk. We've kept an eye on him, sure, but it was never necessary to interfere. Now it is. It's as simple as that."

"There's nothing simple in crossing Henry John Parker," Swanson warned him. "He's got _contacts_, even if he rarely uses them. Warn me in time, so that I can cover your back as far as I can without getting fired; and it would be better if you roped in your little friend at the City Hall, too."

Ianto shook his head. "Idris can't help us in this. He's not aware of the real reasons for Torchwood's existence."

"Perhaps it's time to let him in to the big secret, then," she said seriously. "You'll need every kind of support you can get in this case."

Ianto nodded slowly. She was right, in more ways than she actually knew it. With Colonel Oduya on the warpath, Torchwood _would_ need the support of the local authorities, and Idris Hopper, an old schoolfriend, was his only link to the City Hall.

"It's not entirely up to me," he said, "but I'll consider it."

"See that you do," Swanson emptied her glass and shrugged on her suit jacket again. "Well, I'm off. The babysitter's cancelled, and I can't expect Eiry to look after the Imp all the time. A girl needs her mother every now and again."

She waved and left Ianto alone with his thoughts and his half-finished lager.

~TBC~


	8. Chapter 8: A Pulse in the Dark

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

The description of Mr. Parker's house is as canonical as I could figure it out by the whole thing happening during the night. It's a nice house, with lots of pretty things in it.

Also, some of the dialogue has been borrowed from the episode, but trust me, the context is fairly different.

* * *

**Chapter 08 – A Pulse in the Dark**

In the end, it took the Torchwood geeks three whole weeks to figure out how to reprogram Adam's nano-termites safely. Several of the little creatures they called "those spidery mouse things" found their untimely death in the process – much to Jenny's chagrin who, unlike Jack, loved the furry, six-inch arachnids with the four pairs of glowing eyes, the sharp little fangs, the cute, mouse-like ears and the long, furred tail.

Barry, the Weevil had gone through the experiment unharmed, though, and in the end Adam reluctantly agreed to give it a try.

"Unfortunately, there won't be a trial run," Owen warned him, loading his injector with the stimulant that would set off the increased cold output of the microscopic robots. "The little buggers will burn out after this stunt completely, so I'll have to go with you and inject you directly before we start the action."

"You mean my vomit-o-matic won't work anymore?" Adam was a bit disappointed. It was a useful thing, even if it creeped out other people.

"See it from the good side," Mickey said, grinning. "At least you gotta be able to puke properly again."

"I don't see _that_ as a good thing." Adam replied dryly.

"Look it's still not too late to change your mind," Ianto offered. "We can always go over to Plan B. I admit it's gonna be a little more complicated that way…"

"Understatement of the decade," Jack muttered, earning an annoyed look for his interference.

"All right: a great deal more complicated," Ianto admitted. "But we _could_ do it… with lots and lots of luck."

Adam shook his head. "Nah; I said I'll do it."

Losing his handy vomit-o-matic was a small price for winning his freedom… eventually. He needed them to trust him. Besides, the frozen waste always hurt his throat and left an unpleasant aftertaste, no matter what.

"Good," Ianto said in obvious relief. "The energy pulse has been going up and down during these weeks, but we can't be sure that it will remain stable… or for how long. And if it does blow up…"

"… we don't know what the fallout will be," Adam finished for him. "Yeah, you guys have told me that, oh, a dozen or so times already. C'mon, let's do this before I change my mind."

"Very well," Ianto looked at his watch. "It's exactly 8:30 p.m. Owen, you, Jack and Andy will go with him – just in case you run into the coppers. Andy has the best chance to deal with them without causing any more hostility."

"I thought you cleared it with Swanson," Owen said accusingly.

Ianto visibly swallowed a comment that most likely wouldn't have been a friendly one.

"I did," he replied, "but she can't redirect the regular patrols for our sake. There are _crimes_ happening in this city, you know; your regular, run-of-the-mill crimes that have nothing to do with the Rift. She can stall Mr. Parker's people, should they call the police, but that's all she can do, so be careful. Especially you, Jack; you ain't exactly subtle."

"Perhaps you should leave the coat behind, Captain," Lloyd suggested. "People recognize it – and you – from the other side of an unlit street at first sight."

Jack wasn't happy with that but had to admit that Lloyd was right. He reluctantly took of his beloved greatcoat, handing it to Ianto automatically. To Adam's surprise, he didn't look any smaller without it; but again, it's hard to look small if you're six feet tall.

"I'd be happier if we could take Jenny with us," he said. "She might recognize the technology, and her sonic screwdriver can open practically every lock."

"Which is why it's called a _universal key_," Jenny emphasized, rolling her eyes. "Sonic screwdriver… don't be ridiculous! Who's got a _sonic_ screwdriver anyway?"

Adam could have name someone but found it better to shut up for the moment. He wasn't sure how much Jenny knew; if she'd ever heard about the Doctor.

"I'm entitled to my moments of nostalgia," Jack returned.

"Not now," Ianto interrupted. "And no, you can't take Jenny. Should anything go wrong, her physiology would be a dead give-away… _literally,_ in the worst case scenario. We don't know what else may be in Mr. Parker's house, but whatever there is, I'm confident that either you or Adam can deal with it. Now, get going. I told Detective Swanson that the action will start at 9 p.m, sharp. Sally and Trevor have finished setting up the external surveillance cameras and the monitors. The rest is up to you."

* * *

As expected, the Parker residence was a true estate in the really posh part of the city; a fairly large one, encircled by a high stone wall. Adam and the others approached the gate – a surprisingly simple one, elegantly wrought of iron bars – in the shadow of that wall. Peeking through the bars, they could see a large, kidney-shaped pond in the middle of the garden, with a security guard walking along its edge.

Adam was nervous. More than nervous, actually; he was scared shitless. Scared of the highly experimental trick that was supposed to get him into the house – he knew enough about alien technology to recognise at least a dozen of the myriad ways everything could have gone pear-shaped. Scared of the private security – if they were anything like Mr Van Statten's guards, they'd shoot first – or beat him to bloody pulp – and never bother to ask any questions afterwards. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want to get hurt, either. Suddenly spending the next few years in a cell under the Hub seemed _very_ attractive. He got dangerously close to chickening out in the last minute.

He pressed his back to the stone wall, letting its coolness seep through his hoodie and calm his nerves a little. Peeking through the iron bars again, he watched anxiously the security guard – a big, burly, bald-headed man in a dark suit and with a Bluetooth device in his ear – walk past the gate. His knees trembled and he was shaking badly.

He could see Owen and Andy exchanging worried looks, and Captain Harkness roll his eyes. Clearly, they were not impressed with him, but what had they expected? He wasn't a super secret Torchwood agent like them; he didn't do things like this for a living.

Toshiko's sweet voice broke through his panic attack via the comm link.

"Jack? Owen? Guys?"

"Yeah," Owen all but whispered into his own comm. "We hear you, Tosh. What have you got for us?"

"Okay, the power in the house is supplied from one private electrical generator," Toshiko explained. "There's a backup unit but take the main one down and you've got one minute twenty of blackout time."

Owen opened his mouth to say something but fell silent again because now a second guard – this one somewhat shorter, with slicked-back dark hair – appeared on the other side of the pool. The two guards circled around the water in what appeared a routine manner.

"Shit!" Owen whispered into his comm. "Teaboy, there are two guards in the sodding garden. Can you get rid of them? Have them called away or something?"

"It might look a bit suspicious if there were two phone calls," Ianto's voice answered.

Owen rolled his eyes. "Try and make it the big one then, okay? Adam's close to wetting himself here."

"I'm _not_!" Adam hissed angrily, although the acerbic doctor wasn't so far from the truth.

"I'll see what we can do," Ianto replied calmly. "Be prepared to enter in five minutes."

At the same time something shrieked in the garden – perhaps some kind of night bird. Adam was so startled he nearly collapsed. Simultaneously, a mobile phone rang. The two guards looked at each other, then the smaller one answered the phone.

"Hello?"

Owen rolled his eyes again. "Thanks so much, Teaboy!"

* * *

Back in the Hub, Sally Jacobs was sitting at her station, studying the personal file of a certain Ben Taylor on her screen and talking to the man himself through the speakerphone.

"Mr. Taylor? Mr. Ben Taylor?"

"Yeah, that's right," came the somewhat surprised answer. "Who's this?"

"I'm calling from _St. Helen's Hospital_," Sally continued in a professional, no-nonsense manner she'd heard from duty nurses countless times. "A certain Mrs. Christine Taylor was brought in an hour ago – that's your wife, isn't it? She's been involved in a car accident."

"Is she hurt?" came the anxious question.

"No, no, she's going to be fine," Sally hurried to reassure the frightened husband, adopting the calming manner she'd learned from Dr. Connolly. "But she's asking to see you."

"Of course, I'm on my way," and with that, the man hung up.

Sally grinned at her colleagues. "Mission accomplished. Am I good or am I good?"

"Very good," Ianto agreed. "Let's hope the others can use the chance you've just created for them."

* * *

Adam watched with increasing nervousness as the smaller guard pocketed his phone and turned to his colleague.

"You all right?" the bigger one asked, seeing his worried expression.

"It's Chrissie, she's been in an accident," the smaller guard shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "Look, I've got to go."

His colleague nodded. "Yeah, of course. Go, I'll clear it with the boss. And give Chrissie my regards."

The smaller guard left the garden through the gate, without noticing Adam who pressed himself against the stone wall as if he'd wanted to meld with it. The remaining guard looked around, then switched on his radio.

"Mr. Farrington? Ben's had to go. His wife's been in an accident," he listened to the answer and nodded. "Yes, sir. Will do," and walked away towards the pool.

"Okay," Owen brought forth the injector. "This was our clue," he grabbed Adam's arm, pushed up his shirt sleeve and injected him with the stimulant. "You've got about twelve minutes before your body temperature would return to normal. Don't waste 'em."

"Have you memorised the location of the electrical box?" Jack asked. Adam nodded. "Good. Andy, you go with him. Deal with the guard if he gets caught, but don't follow him into the house, unless you have to. And hurry up, both of you. We must act quickly, unless we want to besiege the house."

Adam could already feel the cold spreading through his entire body.

"Yeah," he said. "We'd better go while I still can."

Jack opened the gate and Adam and Andy ran through. They passed the pool and hurried up the lawn. On their right was a large, nicely constructed greenhouse; they moved along the building until they reached the main lawn, where they stopped for a moment to look out for the electrical box.

"Over there," Andy breathed, pointing in the right direction. Then he tossed the thick isolation glove at Adam. "Go on; I'll watch your back."

Clumsily due to the rapidly spreading cold in his limbs, Adam hurried over to the electrical box. And opened it, jumping nervously when the hinges squeaked.

"Okay, guys," he murmured quietly into his comm. "I'm here."

"Good for you," a voice replied from behind him; he hadn't noticed the bald guard walking up to him. "Now, move away from there."

Startled, Adam turned around. The guard reached out to grab him; he tried to avoid the contact, but the semi-frozen state of his body slowed him down considerably. Fortunately for him, Andy had caught up with him by then and kicked the guard unceremoniously in the gut.

"Hurry up," he said.

Adam pulled on the isolation glove and prepared to reach into the electrical box just as the guard groaned and clambered back to his feet.

"Oh, no," Andy pulled out his gun and the guard stopped. "Just stay where you are, mate. Or don't you want to see what he can do?"

"What?" the guard snapped, staring at Adam; and in that moment Andy clicked the fingers of his free hand.

The infospike emerged from Adam's forehead, laying free a part of his brain. The guard's eyes bulged almost comically; he made no attempt to defend himself when Andy knocked him out with the butt of his gun.

"I thought the spike was supposed to remain a secret!" Adam snapped at the ex-PC.

"Don't worry, he's not gonna talk," Andy opened the guard's mouth with a gloved hand and put a little white pill under his tongue.

Adam felt a cold creep down his spine; a cold that had nothing to do with the nano-termites working overtime in his system. "Have you poisoned him?"

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous!" Andy snorted. "It's just Jack's little amnesia pill, and a low dosis at that. He'll wake up with a headache and no memories about the last two hours, that's all. Now, do your thing!"

Adam screwed up his face, not entirely sure that the isolation glove would provide enough protection, but he did stick his hand in the electrical box and shorted it out. The lights in the house flashed, and he grinned in surprise.

"Woo!" he pulled out the main cable. The power went out completely. "I didn't think it would actually work!"

"Tosh knows her stuff," Andy grinned back at him.

In the next moment the radio of the unconscious guard came alive with a loud _crack_.

"Webb?" a male voice, presumably that of security chief Farrington, asked. "Dave, are you there?"

"One minute, twenty until the backup generator comes online," Toshiko's voice said simultaneously in their ear.

Andy looked down at the man whose name was obviously David Webb, then back at Adam. "You better hurry up, mate."

Adam nodded and started running towards the main house, hoping that he wouldn't become frozen solid before reaching it. As soon as he was gone, Webb's radio cracked again.

"This is Farrington to all units," the pervious voice said. "The backup generator will be running in forty-five seconds. Stay at your posts, please. Mr. Parker's personal generator is unaffected."

"Shit!" Andy muttered, running after Adam.

That was fast, faster than they'd expected. He might have to haul their nervous newbie out of trouble – even if the heat sensors did pick up his presence.

* * *

In the meantime Adam had reached the main house and stood in confusion in front of the large, double French windows. They were still closed… weren't they supposed to be open?

"Sorry, Adam," Toshiko's voice spoke in his ear as if she'd read his thoughts, "they've obviously had some work done. Try the manual controls, near the floor."

Adam knelt down – with some effort as his semi-frozen limbs didn't appear very cooperative – and felt for the opening mechanism on the bottom level of the doorframe. Luckily for him, it turned out to be a purely mechanical one, and he could easily enough open them. He had always been good with such things, and now it came in handy.

As he pushed the large wings open to cautiously enter the foyer, his glance fell upon a massive, round, onyx-plated table with carved legs. A bronze statuette of a satyr playing a lute was standing in the middle of it. A beautiful piece of furniture with a beautiful little sculpture, Adam found. Mr. Parker apparently had other interests than just collecting alien junk – and good taste, too.

The rest of the foyer was equally posh. Deep burgundy red wallpaper covered the walls, its planes interrupted by visibly old, brown-hued family pictures in gilded oval frames. The hall went over seamlessly into something that appeared to be a wide hallway laid out with a dark red carpet but was in fact a library, its walls framed by floor-to-ceiling book-cases, beautifully carved of dark, polished wood. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of books stood row upon row on the shelves, some of them clearly very old.

As he walked into the library, Adam noticed the green sensor lights on the floor.

"Heat sensors," he muttered. "Well, guys, we'll see how good a job you've done with me."

He waved his arm in the direction of the sensor's path, half-expecting the alarms to set of immediately, but nothing happened. He looked at his hand in surprise.

"Okay, this redefines the meaning of _cool _by several magnitudes," he decided, his fingers numb with cold as he fumbled with his flashlight to move further into the hallway.

Crossing the library, he reached a stairway at the other end. The white stars – he couldn't tell whether they were of marble or not, but they certainly looked like – were covered with a dark red Persian rug, which in turn was fixed with a high-polished messing rod under each step. The wallpaper was white brocade here, patterned in white, and framed pictures of far-away, exotic places decorated the entire wall. He touched his comm link.

"Right," he whispered. "I'm in. What now?"

"Okay, the energy reading seems to be coming from the first floor," Toshiko told him. "A room at the back of the house."

That didn't sound so good. He could easily be walking into a trap; and he was cold, so very cold. Adam shivered, briefly wondering if he was gonna freeze to death like those spidery mouse things. After all, he had considerably more nano-termites in his system than even Barry the Weevil had been given.

"Can you give me anything else?" he asked, his teeth chattering with the inner cold.

"Afraid not," Toshiko answered apologetically. "The energy source is playing havoc with the system, sorry."

"No worries," Adam was too cold to care anymore. "I'm getting used to being in the dark."

As if mocking him, the power switched back on, just when he passed a small side room that looked like a kitchenette, and the lights in the house powered up. Well, that couldn't be helped now. He had to go on as long as he still could.

He began to ascend the stairs, carefully because he barely had any feelings left in his legs. The bloody nano-termites were definitely working overtime, and he began to wonder if the Torchwood gang would be able to thaw him out again – supposed that he'd survive the mission.

Ah, well, dying a hero might be overrated but it still beat dying on the autopsy table of some secret lab.

He reached the middle of the stairway where it took a sudden turn. One could access a balcony from there on the right, the glass doors leading to it half-obscured by the heavy, black-patterned beige curtains bound up on both sides. The five lights of the very posh, gilded chandelier hanging right above the turn reflected on the glass. The whole place practically screamed of money and Adam felt bitter resentment as he compared it with the modest little house of his Mum, back in Manchester.

Why were people like Mr. Van Statten or Mr. Parked entitled to have everything? Okay, so they'd worked right, But so had his Dad done, too, all his life, and a fat lot of good had come out of it. And now his Dad was gone, due to that stupid accident, his Mum was struggling to keep that pathetic little house, and _he_… he was practically imprisoned in Torchwood and couldn't even help her. He had no job, no money, lived in constant fear of ending up in some government lab where he'd be sliced and diced… it was not _fair_!

"Hold it there!" a harsh voice from above his head ordered, and he stopped obediently, looking up at the security guard standing at the top of the stairs.

It was a big, beefy, dark-skinned bloke with short-cropped hair, wearing the same nondescript black suit as the others and the obligatory Bluetooth device in his ear. His small, observant eyes measured Adam suspiciously; and what was even worse, he had a rather big gun aimed at Adam's head.

"Evening," Adam said nervously; it was absurd, he knew, but what else could be do but stall the bloke until Andy would come to the rescue? His limbs were so numb with cold that rushing the guard – even if he had the physical strength to overwhelm him, which he didn't – was out of the question. "Nice place you've got here… real posh 'n all. Love what you've done with the pictures."

He continued up slowly, very slowly. There were sensors at each corner of the French window leading to the balcony, but they didn't react as he walked past. The guard noticed it, too, and started getting nervous.

"Who are you?" he demanded Why aren't the sensors picking you up?"

Adam shrugged. "Me? I'm nobody. In fact, I'm not even here. Won't be for the next couple of years."

"Okay, stop!" the guard clearly wasn't buying. "Stop or I'll shoot"

"No, you won't," Andy walked up to Adam's side casually. "You're a security guard. C'me on, that gun's just for show, ain't it?" He walked past Adam, cool like a cucumber, as if he weren't looking into the muzzle of a mean-looking gun now aimed directly at his head. "But anyway, my friend hasn't got any body heat. You must know what that means? Of course you do, you look smart; and your guess is right. We froze him like a fish to fool your sensors. Now, I'd love to stay and chat with you, mate, but this ain't a social call, you see. We've got a job to do here."

The guard stared at him in utter bewilderment. "What the hell _are_ you?"

Having reached the top of the stairs, Andy grabbed the guard's wrist and twisted it brutally, until he let go of his gun.

"I'm Torchwood," he replied, "and I'm running out of time, so… sorry, but I really, _really_ gotta go."

He smashed the gun into the guard's face, knocking him out. Then he stepped over the prone body, dropped the guard's gun – after having carefully removed the ammunition – near the unconscious man and took his own gun out. The cartridge clicked as he snapped it in place.

"Let's hurry up," he said. "The sensors probably have picked up _me_ by now, so we have no time to waste."

* * *

The stairs led them to another long hallway with white walls and a dark red carpet covering the floor. There were more framed pictures on the wall on their right and doors of dark, polished wood on their left. Andy checked the doors, one after another, but they all opened to dark, abandoned rooms. Te stale air revealed that no-one had lived in these rooms for a very long time.

Finally, the last door at the end of the hallway led them to some sort of antechamber that at least wasn't entirely dark. By full light, it would turn out a beautiful place, with the heavy, brocaded curtains tied to the side of the windows and the glass cabinets full of exotic – presumably extraterrestrial – artefacts on display. Right now, however, the only illumination came from two silk-screened lamps, standing on low tables on either side of the slide doors, and from the illuminated cabinets themselves, so the bigger part of the room remained in shadow. The only other thing they could make out was a bronze bust on the mantelpiece.

"Let's try the slide doors," Adam suggested, and Andy tossed them open without hesitation.

Behind the doors, they found what seemed to be the bedroom of a very ill person. In the middle of the room stood a large, richly-carved bed, covered with a mosquito net, surrounded by high-end medical equipment and security monitors. The old man in the bed looked positively ancient: his thinning hair white like snow, his wrinkled face parchment-dry – he was skin and bones; almost frighteningly frail.

He appeared to be asleep. The only sound that could be heard was the steady beeping of a heart monitor. Behind the bed, a life-sized portrait hung on the wall, presumably the old man in his dynamic youth. There were other glass cabinets with more alien junk on display near the doors. Mr. Parker must have been quite the collector.

"Check the displays for a matching energy signature," Andy tossed a small, hand-held scanner to Adam. "And don't dawdle. We haven't got the time."

"Yes, I'd say you haven't," an elderly voice said. Andy whirled around and found the old man awake.

"It's all right, Mr. Parker," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a police officer. Well… I used to be one."

The old man cackled… or it might have been a futile attempt to laugh.

"You're a very violent police officer, young man," he replied. "I've been watching you," he lifted his hand and indicated the security monitors set up nearby.

Andy pushed the netting aside to look at the old man.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Parker," he said honestly. "I wish there was another way."

The old man looked up at him shrewdly. "So, you're Torchwood, yes?" Andy nodded simply. "Did the American send you?"

Adam and Andy exchanged surprised looks; then Andy nodded again. "Yeah, he sent us. How do you know so much about us?"

The old man cackled again. "Oh, I've been watching you for a long, long time. I've met the American once or twice… when I was younger… only that he… kept himself in better form," he coughed, then closed his eyes, exhausted.

After a moment he looked up again, his glance hesitating between the two young men.

"He could've sent that Japanese girl," he grumbled. "I like her. She's cute _and_ smart."

"Trust me, I'd have preferred her, too," Andy replied with feeling. "But we can't always get what we want. No offence, mate," he added as an afterthought, with a sideways glance in Adam's direction.

Adam shrugged. He was too cold to care. Even breathing was getting more and more difficult.

Old Mr. Parker's mind still seemed to be preoccupied with Toshiko.

"Is she ... uh ... on your phone thing?" he asked Andy. "That earpiece?"

Andy nodded, and the old man brightened visibly.

"Hello!" he said. "Just to say you've got very lovely legs. You should show them off more."

He got another coughing fit. It sounded bad. Adam, abandoning the glass cabinet, edged closer to the bed.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked.

The old man looked up at him blearily. "Three heart attacks and a failed bypass. But I'm fine, because I have this."

With trembling, skeletal hands he took out an obviously alien device hidden under his covers. It had the size and shape of an ostrich egg, more or less, but it glowed, pulsed with light and emitted a hollow sound.

"It's called _the Pulse_," he told them.

"You know what it is?" Andy snatched the hand-held scanner from Adam's nerveless fingers to measure the energy readings. "Yep, this is definitely the energy signature we were looking for."

"I named it," the old man said, stroking the device gently. "It's keeping me alive."

Mesmerised by the pulsing light and the low, almost hypnotic hum of the… the _thing_, Adam reached out with a shaking hand, but the old man snatched it away jealously.

"No! You're not taking it."

Adam's hand fell away in defeat.

"It could be dangerous," Andy warned. "We've been detecting massive energy readings."

"I don't care," the old man snarled. "All I know is, it works."

Andy studied the readings of his scanner, frowning. "Well, I'm sorry, it doesn't."

"What?" Mr. Parker stared at him in shock.

"The energy isn't going into you," Andy explained apologetically. "The power's just building up inside that thing, that's what we've been detecting but ... it isn't actually doing anything for you."

"You're wrong," Adam said quietly. "I can feel it, too. Just now, when I almost touched it, for a moment I had the feeling back in my fingertips. It hurt like hell, true, but…"

"Mate, listen to yourself!" Andy said, exasperated. "You shouldn't feed him false hopes. There are loads of people's lives at risk. If that explodes…"

"You're young," the old man interrupted. "You don't understand what dying feels like."

"Well, I for my part am getting close to it," Adam spread his stiff fingers with some difficulty and studied them morosely. "Look at me. They used alien tech to lower my body temperature, so that I could fool your… heat sensors. Only that it… got out of hand. I… it's getting hard to… to breathe… lungs freezing over, I guess… my vision's blurring, too…"

The old man was watching him like a hawk. Seeking for any signs of falseness, most likely; Adam didn't care. Each new breath felt like icicles stabbing into his lungs. God, it hurt!

His face must have revealed what he felt because Mr. Parker's eyes suddenly softened. He lifted the device with trembling hands and offered it to him.

"Take it," he said softly. "You're just a boy. It wouldn't be right if you died for a piece of… alien junk, no matter… what it can do."

He coughed again. The monitor alarm beeped. Andy looked around frantically, found the oxygen mask and put it on Mr. Parker, letting him breathe in deep. After the old man had calmed down and the monitor alarm stopped, he removes the oxygen mask and touched his earpiece.

"Owen, come up to our location," he said. "I think Mr. Parker needs a doctor."

"I'll try," came Owen's answer.

Andy pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. "Help is on his way," he promised.

The old man wasn't listening to him. His chest rose and sank in a flat, irregular motion, but his hands were still holding out the Pulse to Adam.

"What's gonna happen to you if you give up the Pulse?" Andy asked.

He didn't believe that the alien device could actually sustain life; in his opinion it was simply its warmth Adam had reacted to. But he knew all too well what faith and hope – or the loss of them – could do to a seriously ill person, so he was willing to play Mr. Parker's game.

The old man shrugged his thin shoulders.

"Does it matter? I've had a long life… a good one. I've travelled the world. I fought in the war. Started my own business. I made a fortune. Married. Widowed. My collection, all of it. I've done so much and this is where I ended up. Alone. Lying in my own piss. Look at me! Fed through a tube. I might as well be dead already."

The low hum of the Pulse increased to a soft keening, and he offered it to Adam again.

"Why don't you take it?" he asked softly. "You're so young; you still… have your whole life… before you. Take it!"

Adam hesitatingly took the device… and nearly dropped it, as its pulsating warmth stabbed into his icy fingers like dozens of white-hot needles. Oh God, it hurt! It hurt more than everything he'd ever felt!

He'd read it somewhere that freezing to death was a relatively painless way to go – but if one got rescued in the last moment, thawing out usually meant excruciating pain. Unless one was lucky enough to pass out in time, that is.

Passing out wasn't an option right now, though, so he had to grit his teeth and bear it as well as he could. He knew this was his only chance to survive the insane experiment with the nano-termites, and now that he'd been generously given that chance, he wasn't about to let anyone take it from him.

He vaguely registered the arrival of Owen and Captain Harkness who stormed into the room with stun guns in their hands; they must have run into more security on their way in. He watched them in a detached manner, as if he'd been watching a film with muted sound. The pain all but blocked out everything else.

As if through a thick layer of water, he hard the old man having another coughing fit, the worst of all so far. Then he saw the heart monitor flatlining. Andy put the oxygen mask on Mr Parker's face while Owen was pressing random buttons on the machine, but there was no response.

The heart monitor flatlined.

"Leave it," Owen said to Andy. "We must reanimate him – if we still can, that is."

He got to work. First he checked the monitors, then he checked Mr. Parker for a pulse and removed the pillow from behind his head. Then he started chest compressions and leaned in to give him mouth-to-mouth… to no end.

The heart monitor flatlined. Owen hit the bed in frustration.

"Dammit, old man, don't you dare to die on me now!" he swore and started chest compressions again.

Captain Harkness laid a hand on his shoulder. "Owen… it's no use. Let him be. He was old and very, very ill. It's better this way. Let's take what we've come for and leave. His people will take care of the body."

* * *

Owen turned away with a defeated sigh. He knew Jack was right, but he still felt like a failure whenever a patient died under his hands. Even if there was no hope to save them.

That was why he preferred Torchwood, where most of his patients were dead already. He happily left the living ones to Tom Milligan-

"All right," he said. "Let's go."

"Andy, Adam!" Tosh's voice said in their ear. "Guys, can you hear me? Come in!"

Jack tapped his earpiece. "Yeah, we're all here, Tosh. What's it?"

"The device, is it doing anything?" Tosh asked in concern. "Because the energy levels coming from it are… Jack, it's going off the screen! It's going to explode!"

All eyes turned to Adam who was clutching the egg-shaped device with both hands, his face frozen in pure agony. Waves of coloured light floated out of the Pulse, forming broad ribbons that wrapped themselves around Adam's badly shaking body.

"Can we do something to stop it?" Jack asked.

"Nothing!" Tosh sounded slightly hysterical. "There's nothing! Get out of there, now!"

"That's not so easy," Jack replied. "The… the energy has wrapped itself around Adam. We must get him out of it first."

"You can't," Tosh said flatly. "Jack, the energy reading's off the scale. If you stay there, you won't survive, none of you!"

Jack hesitated for a moment. Adam was still cradling the Pulse close to his body, as if he'd tried to absorb its heat. The light the thing was emanating grew in intensity; then there was a brilliant, soundless explosion. Their eyes closed reflexively.

When they opened them again, there was no trace of either Adam or the device.

"Well, shit," Owen summarised everyone's thoughts. "Seems we'll have to start the hunt all over again."

Jack nodded grimly. "At least now we're gonna have a lead. Let's go back to the Hub. Tosh can find our little escapee through his subcutaneous tracking chip – and _then_ we'll have words with him, Ianto and me."

Andy felt really sorry for Adam in that moment.

~TBC~


	9. Chapter 9: On the Run

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

Again, apologies for the whacky pseudo-sicence.

**Warning:** There are some really disturbing images concerning suicide and the working of the vomit-o-matic, so read this at your own discrection.

* * *

**Chapter 09 – On the Run**

When Adam came to, he found himself in a previously unknown area of Cardiff – at least he _supposed_ that he was still in Cardiff. At least it was still night, and he no longer was frozen. The pain had subsided, too.

Thank God for small favours.

The Pulse in his hand was dark and cool, depleted of its mysterious energy – if temporarily or permanently, it would show later. That was no reason to let it get stolen, so… Adam looked around and saw in relief that somehow Andy's backpack got transported with him. He quickly went through its contents, pocketed the wallet with slightly guilty feelings (promising that he'd give back Andy's money as soon as possible) and rolled the Pulse into a scarf that he found at the bottom – not bothering with the question why would Andy keep a scarf in his backpack in summer.

Granted, it was Welsh summer, which meant cool and rainy, but again, Andy _was_ Welsh, so wasn't he supposed to be used to it?

Adam shook his head tiredly. A slight throbbing behind his eyes signalled an upcoming headache, to which he'd been prone since childhood. Having frozen to near-death and thawed out by some weird kind of alien energy probably hadn't helped, either.

Or he was simply hungry. He hadn't dared to eat before that insane mission, in case he should get nauseous – another thing he was prone to – and the reprogrammed nano-termites would play havoc with him. The last thing he needed was a spontaneously emerging icicle through his throat.

He went through Andy's belongings again and found a power bar and an apple. At the mere sight of food, a wave of ravenous hunger hit him. His hands trembled as he unwrapped the power bar; he needed all his willpower to take small bites and to chew carefully. He _had_ to be careful. He couldn't know in which shape his vomit-o-matic was; if the nano-termites had truly burned out or if they were malfunctioning.

"Must have depleted more energy than I thought," he muttered, munching on the apple. Which, considering the strain his system had recently gone through, wasn't a surprise.

Now that he'd eaten a bite, he had to decide what to do with his unexpectedly acquired freedom. Right now, the perspective wasn't promising. He had no money, save for the few bills in Andy's wallet (enough, perhaps, for a decent warm meal later), he had no idea where he was, he had no place to stay – and there was always the danger of some idiot clicking their fingers near him.

Plus, if he didn't log in to his computer in the Hub within twenty-four hours, the clever little Trojan left behind in the security system would come alive and knock off the tracking programme cold. Torchwood wouldn't be able to track him. They'd think he'd bolted and would go through Cardiff with the fine-toothed comb until they hunted him down.

This wasn't how he'd planned to flee. He'd intended to prepare his escape carefully; to secure some means for a living first. The Pulse had definitely made a strike through his carefully-laid plans. Now he'd have to think on his feet very quickly – unless he wanted to go back to Torchwood and try to explain them that he hadn't exactly _planned_ to teleport out of the Parker residence.

Or whatever else might have happened. Ironically enough, it wouldn't even be a lie.

Only that he didn't think they'd believe him. Especially if he didn't get back before the Trojan would activate itself.

Well, he needed to move on in any case. Right now they'd still be able to track him; and besides, he needed to find out where he'd ended up. Only when he knew his starting point could he determine the direction he wanted to go.

First, though, he needed to take safety measures. He put on the baseball cap he'd found in Andy's backpack, pulling it deeply into his forehead and hoping that it would cover the accidental emergence of the infospike without damaging it – _or_ his brain. He found a light jacket, too, and put it on because he was still shaking a little; either from the shock of being mysteriously transported away or from the residual cold in his system. The sleeves were a bit long – again, not surprising, given Andy's lanky frame – so he rolled them up to his wrists. It didn't look too bad, and an additional layer against the chill of the night was mightily welcome.

He wondered if he'd ever feel truly warm again.

Well, he could wonder about _that_ later. Right now, he had to move. Shouldering Andy's backpack, he hesitated for a moment – then he chose a random direction and marched on.

* * *

It was a positively fuming Jack Harkness who arrived at the Hub about there hours later, flanked by Andy and Owen but without Adam – _or_ the mysterious alien machine. They'd been held up by creatively avoiding the police, called by Mr. Parker's security chief, and by tapping into the security system of the Parker residence to delete the CCTV footage.

"That miserable little rat!" he raged, meaning Adam, of course. "When I get my hands on him again, he'll learn to regret the coming of the day on which he was born. I'll take him apart, piece by piece."

"You'll do no such thing," Ianto interrupted in a firm tone that brooked no argument. "We don't know what really happened – not _yet_. And I won't authorize a manhunt before I've checked the circumstances of his disappearance."

Jack glared at him in disbelief. "You can't be serious! He stole a potentially dangerous alien artefact and ran away with it – not to mention the risk that piece of advanced technology in his head represents. We can't allow him to run free."

"And we won't," Ianto replied, completely unfazed by Jack's outburst. "Which is why Tosh has already activated the tracking programme. In the meantime we'll check the CCTV recording of the events and try to figure out what might have happened."

"We don't have the time for a technical analysis right now!" Jack protested.

"Yes, we do," Ianto said calmly. "Stand down, Jack. We can't do anything until the tracker finds him. So we can as well analyse the records. Sit. Tosh, show us what you've got."

"I've hacked into Mr. Parker's internal security system," Tosh explained. "Look. This is what I saw right after the old man died."

Thy all stared at Tosh's monitor that was practically filled with bright light… presumably the image of the alien device. The light grew steadily brighter and brighter, with waves of energy emitting from the source. Then came the explosion – and then darkness.

"That's it?" Jack asked, disappointed. Tosh shook her head.

"Wait a minute," she said.

After about thirty seconds, the image cleared up again. There were Andy, Owen and Jack, old Mr. Parker lying in his bed, dead. Of Adam – _or_ the artefact – there was no trace.

"So what?" Jack asked impatiently. "We haven't learned anything new, I'd say."

"And you'd be wrong," Tosh replied. "Look at the time stamp. Adam _and_ the device vanished into thin air, in the exact moment of the explosion."

"There wasn't really an explosion," Jenny corrected, "or there would have been serious damage to the house. Was there any?" she looked at Jack who shook his head reluctantly.

"Nah; and we weren't hurt, either."

"But if it wasn't an explosion, what was it then?" Sally replayed the effect and watched it with a frown.

"A massive energy output of some sort," Jenny guessed. "I'm not familiar with the technology, unfortunately, but I believe the energy was seeking for a compatible channel… and found it in Adam's semi-frozen body, probably teleporting him somewhere spontaneously in the process. Probably saving his life, too. His body temperature had been dangerously low, according to the heat cameras."

"You mean the artefact is some kind of transmat device?" Trevor clarified with a doubtful expression. "With that light show, it wouldn't be very practical."

"True," Jenny agreed. "Which is why I don't believe it's a transmat. It definitely must have something to do with transportation – the energy levels were too high for anything else – but nothing as small-scale as personal transport, I think. Rather…"

"… and engine!" Trevor snapped his fingers and grinned from ear to ear like a loon. "If we could build it into your ship…"

"…it would save the fuel problem, and at the same time provide the artefact with a safe use for its energy output," Tosh finished for him. "That would be brilliant."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Ianto stopped them before they could have been carried away with enthusiasm too much. "First we must get the device, whatever it is. _If_ it's still working, you may give it a try, but let's deal with first things first. Tosh, can you tell me where Adam is at the moment?"

Tosh checked the tracking system – and frowned. "That's odd."

"_What_ is odd?" Ianto practiced his unparalleled gift of patience.

"I've just got in a vague sign of him, half a mile from the Parker residence," Tosh replied, "but now… the system just _froze_."

Ianto's eyebrows drew together in concern and disapproval. "I thought our security system wasn't supposed to freeze."

"It wasn't, in theory," Tosh said, perplexed. "Not unless…" she started the diagnostic programme and the frown lines on her smooth brow deepened considerably. "Someone's tampered with the system."

"That's impossible!" Sally argued. "Mainframe is centuries ahead of everything everyone could come up with on this planet."

"Maybe," Jack said grimly. "But we happen to know somebody with a piece of two thousandth century technology in his head. Somebody I'm gonna put in the freezer for the next two hundred millennia if I get my hands on him again."

"I don't think this would be your decision, Jack," Ianto said a bit coldly. "Tosh, has the security system been irreparably damaged?"

"No," Tosh answered in surprise. "Just the tracking programme's been knocked out. The rest will work just fine, once I've rebooted the system."

"Is Mainframe in any way affected?"

"Again, no," Tosh double-checked the status of their computer. "It seems to be a fairly isolated problem."

"So all he wanted was to get away," Ianto murmured thoughtfully. "Can you pick up any energy readings from the device itself?"

"None. It's either burned out or needs time to recharge."

"But once it's recharged…"Ianto trailed off expectantly.

"Then we'll be able to locate it and hope that Adam's still got it on him," Tosh finished for him.

"Very well," Ianto said. "Have Mainframe watch out for the energy signature. And connect that face recognition software with the CCTV system. If he's still in Cardiff, he'll show up, sooner or later."

"What do you mean _if he's still in Cardiff_?" Andy asked.

"The most likely scenario is that the artefact has spontaneously transported him when it reached its maximum energy output," Tosh explained. "We don't know the range of the thing; or whether it transports people in space, in time or both. Right now, Adam can by anywhere – or _anywhen_."

"That still won't save the little rat if I ever get hold of him," Jack muttered darkly.

Ianto sighed. "Jack, be reasonable. I don't think he's actually planned to bolt so early on. This was the doing of the artefact, not his own."

"Why has he sabotaged our security system, then?" Andy demanded. He was clearly hurt by the actions of their… _guest_ whom he'd genuinely tried to befriend.

"I believe Tosh would find that it was an automated reaction by whatever he's planted in the tracking system," Ianto replied. "The goal was, I imagine, for it to set off _after_ he's gone, so that we'd lose track on him. Perhaps he'd need to log in within a certain time frame in order _not_ to trigger the reaction; I don't know. But I'm fairly sure that he didn't intend to run away just yet."

"He _was_ planning to, though," Jack said grimly. Ianto nodded.

"Quite so, but can you really blame him? You of all people should understand him. You know from first-hand experience what it means to be forcibly drafted by Torchwood."

"We didn't force him to do anything!" Jack snapped.

"No," Ianto agreed. "We simply didn't offer him any alternative save a prison cell or a cryogenic unit. How different is that really from what Emily Holroyd did with you?"

_That _shut Jack up, at least momentarily, to Ianto's relief. He was deadly tired and didn't feel up to the challenge of arguing with Jack for the rest of the night.

"All right," he said. "Clearly, we need to remain in the Hub, but there's no reason to stay awake. Everyone not on shift, off you go to the rest rooms and sleep. Sally's gonna wake us up when either Adam or the artefact is found. We all need to conserve our strength for what's about to come."

* * *

Adam spent the night walking randomly the deserted streets of Cardiff. It was almost daybreak when he happened across a continually open Tesco's where he reluctantly sacrificed some of Andy's money to buy a city map, a foil-wrapped sandwich and an energy drink. He wasn't particularly hungry yet but he knew he'd need to eat something eventually, and it was better to have some food with him already than risking going to the grocer's when there were people everywhere.

He didn't have any detailed plans yet but he realised he'd have to work out one soon. For that, he needed a hiding place first – hence the map. He didn't know Cardiff, so he needed to figure out his current location and where it was in relation to the Torchwood base… and to keep as far away from it as possible. Until he'd found a way to leave the city. Hiding somewhere in the countryside seemed the only solution to him.

He could have returned to the Hub, had the wretched artefact not transported him… well, he still didn't exactly know _where_. But it was already too late for that. By now, the Trojan had become active and knocked out the tracking system. By now, Torchwood had realised what he'd done. Whether he wanted or not, he was on the run now and had to make the best of it.

He was so deep in thoughts that he nearly got a heart attack when something small and white sailed down right before his nose. He caught it by pure reflex and saw that it was a photo. The photo of an obviously happy couple that had been handed a lot, perhaps even cried over, considering its fairly battered state.

But why would anyone throw it away, as it clearly had been cherished for quite a while?

He looked up at the nondescript ten-storey building and it appeared to him as if somebody would be sitting on the edge of the roof. It was hard to figure out in the semi-darkness and by all that distance, but… was somebody just about to jump to their death?

God, that was really the last thing he needed right now. Having a suicidal idiot crash land next to him after a ten-storey nosedive. Seeing their broken body, their blood and brains splattered all over the concrete.

He shuddered, fighting back the nausea by sheer willpower, not knowing how the faulty vomit-o-matic would deal if he tried to throw up. He wished Owen and Tom had extracted all the ruddy nano-termites from the lining of his throat. Or that the reprogramming had burned all the little buggers out well and sundry. But he couldn't be sure, and the last thing he needed was to throw up in the form of half-formed ice chips of sick.

Okay, _not_ the best mental image to fight nausea.

He glanced up again. The small figure was still sitting on the edge of the roof. Good. Perhaps if he talked to them, they'd reconsider.

On the other hand, nearly a million people kill themselves each year worldwide. That was almost three times the population of Cardiff, so perhaps not such a big chance that the one up on the roof would reconsider.

Still, he had to try, at least – even though he wasn't entirely sure _why_.

With renewed energy, Adam went to look for the entrance of the building.

To his relief, he found the front door open, so he didn't have to buzz someone in the godawful hour of dawn to let him in. He wouldn't know what to tell them anyway. Unfortunately, the lift didn't work, though, so he was exhausted and sweating like a horse by the time he found the trap door leading to the roof.

It was shockingly cold up there, much more so than on the ground level, especially after climbing all those sodding chairs, and Adam shivered. _Marvellous_, he though. Pneumonia was exactly what he needed on top of all his other problems – _not_!

He looked around to find the supposedly suicidal person, and after a moment of disorientation – he was never good with heights – he spotted a blonde woman, hair twisted into a loose French knot, sitting on the edge of the roof, her legs dangling off the edge.

It was the same woman as on the photo he'd found; only that she now seemed considerably less happy. In fact, she seemed devastated enough to jump – which she was very obviously considering.

She also must have head Adam's coming (small wonder with the wheezing of his lungs after that long climb) because she didn't startle when he sat down next to him. She simply ignored him. But Adam wasn't giving up just yet.

"Are you really about to jump?" he asked.

_That_ earned him an annoyed sideways glance.

"Would you just piss off?" she snapped, her eyes dark and bitter. "Get off my roof."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "_Your_ roof?"

She turned away from him again. "I'm going to jump, so just leave me alone."

"You wanna jump – what for?" he asked, a bit angry now. "Have you lost your dream job? Has your boyfriend left you? Is _that_ worth throwing your life away, just like that?"

He clicked his fingers. The infospike dutifully emerged.

"Sorry, love, are you talking to me? It's just, you know, I'm a bit busy right now. I'm not really interested in listen…" she trailed off, seeing the infospike opening and Adam's brain becoming clearly visible through the little window. "What is _that_?"

"A piece of experimental technology," Adam lied smoothly.

He was past caring about secrecy by now. All he wanted was a hiding place where he could warm up a little and sleep. Perhaps eat a bite.

"Obviously, it went a bit wrong," he added.

Which was _one_ way to put it.

"Oh, my God!" She climbed down from her perch on the wall and stepped back just to put some distance between them, seriously freaking now. "What the hell _are_ you?"

"Just some idiot who volunteered as a test person where he shouldn't have," Adam replied with a shrug.

Which, in a manner, was the actual truth.

He climbed down off the wall, too, she still backing away from him, eyes now enormously wide and panicked.

"That's not... Yeah. Okay. Okay… that's clearly a bit shit and I'm sorry and everything but… w-why are you here? You can't be wanting to jump. The people who put that… that _thing_ in your head… they can take it out again, right?"

Adam gave her a somewhat unfriendly look. As if it were so easy! As if he could just return to Satellite 5 and have the spike removed!

"Sorry, are you an expert?" he growled.

"Sorry, are you an idiot?" her answering look was every bit as unfriendly.

Adam sighed and closed the infospike with a click of his fingers.

"Yeah. I _am_ an idiot. I thought we'd already established _that_."

She seemed to calm down a little, now that the infospike was no longer visible, but her hand was still shaking as she stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lighted it.

"Look," she said, "why are you here?"

Adam shrugged. "I was looking for a place to crash during daytime – you surely understand that I can't have somebody accidentally click their fingers around me, not with this thing in my head – when _this_ fell right in front of me," he handed her the photo. "This is yours, ain't it?"

She nodded, her eyes filling with unshed tears.

"Is the bloke your boyfriend?"

She nodded again.

"What did he do? Dumped you? Broke your heart?"

"No, actually," she replied in a somewhat shaky voice. "He died."

Adam closed his eyes. So much about people's skills. "I'm sorry," he offered, somewhat lamely.

"No you're not," she said, voice now a touch steadier with the anger in it. "You couldn't care less about me and I don't care about you. Just because we're both planning on jumping, it doesn't mean we have some sort of special connection."

"I'm _not_ planning on jumping," Adam said tiredly. "I just need a place to hide… and to rest for a while, before I can leave Cardiff."

She frowned. "Why would you want to leave? Who are you running from?"

Adam hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. What harm could it do to tell her? She lived in Cardiff, so she had to know about Torchwood's existence. It wasn't the best-kept secret, after all, not with those big, black SUV's with the bleeding huge Torchwood label on them. And since Torchwood didn't seem to be very popular with the people in town, she might even want to help him.

"Torchwood," he finally said.

Which wasn't exactly the truth, as he hadn't intended to flee just yet, but wasn't a complete lie, either.

She'd apparently heard of Torchwood because now she turned all helpful at once.

"C'me on," she said, stomping out the stub of her cigarette. "I've got a small flat in this very house. You can hide there from those bloody freaks for a while. Fridge's not exactly full, but you can have whatever is in it. I won't be needing any of that after tonight anyway."

* * *

"Any sign yet?" Ianto asked.

He'd sent everyone home, with the exception of the night shift – and Jenny, whose expertise she might need, in case the Pulse had replaced Adam in time, too. He'd expressly ordered _Jack_ off, not having the nerve to deal with his fuming.

Sally, who'd been scanning for energy results all the time, shook her head.

"Not from the artefact itself," she replied. "As for the tracker, Tosh will have to reconstruct the tracking programme from the scratch, I'm afraid. It's well and duly crippled."

"That's the last of our problems," Ianto waved off her concern. "We need to find Adam before anyone _else_ does."

"You mean UNIT or the police?" Sally clarified.

"Either," Ianto replied grimly. "Colonel Mace hates Colonel Oduya and wouldn't hand Adam over to Headquarters, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't send him to some secret UNIT lab, even though he's an ex-companion. Colonel Mace's respect for the Doctor has dropped considerably after the Sontaran incident."

"And once Adam's been moved, it would be hard to break him out of a high-security lab, considering that neither the Brig, nor Commodore Sullivan have any _direct_ influence at UNIT politics anymore," Sally nodded in understanding. "We might not get to him in time."

"Exactly," Ianto said. "The same's true for the police. Detective Swanson's our only true ally. I _can_ influence Detective Inspector Henderson to a certain extent, with the help of my contact in the City Hall, but I'm afraid all their influence wouldn't be enough in a case of such magnitude. And then there's that mysterious MI6 agent that's been staying at the UNIT base for months by now."

"You mean Agent Johnson?" Sally asked.

Ianto nodded. "Yep. Neither Martha, nor Private Jenkins has managed to find out anything about her, save that she's here to look out for supposed terrorist activity in Cardiff."

"In _Cardiff_," Sally repeated in disbelief. Ianto shrugged.

"Well, that was the excuse we used after the Abaddon-crisis. We _had_ to explain all the dead bodies somehow, and terrorist activity seemed more believable than 'mysterious alien creature from the Dawn of Time awakening and sucking the life out of people', don't you think?"

"Perhaps," Sally allowed. "It's backfired big time, though, it seems."

"Easy solutions always do," Ianto replied dryly. "Unfortunately, at that moment of crisis we couldn't come up with anything else – so we went for the cliché. It worked well for the authorities after Canary Wharf, didn't it?"

"I understand your reasoning," Sally said slowly, "but it was still a mistake."

"Ianto sighed. "Yeah, I know. But it was right after Jack had run off with the Doctor, and I had to think on my feet very quickly. I never expected having to take over Torchwood; in fact, I fully expected to land in a UNIT prison – or even being executed – for taking part in our little rebellion. The one that nearly destroyed the planet as you know."

"It wasn't your fault," Sally, thoroughly briefed about said events, reminded him. "You'd been misled by that Bilis Manger character."

"Yeah, cos UNIT – or MI6 for that matter – would care for such minor details," Ianto returned grimly. "I had to do what I could to save the team. Her Majesty wanted me to take over cos I was the one with the longest duty record – _and_ the only surviving Archivist. It was that, or handing over everything to UNIT – including ourselves. So I took over. But it wasn't something I'd ever _want_ to do."

"I guess in the light of the recent development within UNIT you're relieved that you hadn't refuse," Sally commented. Ianto nodded.

"Of course I am. But we're not out of danger yet. In fact, we're probably more endangered than ever," he sighed again. "I'm dead on my feet. I need to crash for an hour or two."

"Shouldn't you go home and have a proper night's sleep?" Sally asked gently.

"Probably," Ianto agreed with a tired smile. "But I'm in no shape to drive, and I won't call Jack back to the Hub. It was hard enough to get rid of him. If I start giving in to his bullying, he'll never listen to me again."

"The two of you must have spectacular fights when the rest of us can't hear you," Sally laughed.

Ianto grinned back at her tiredly. "You have no idea. Well, I'm off to the restroom. Wake me if anything happens, will you?"

"As long as you _do_ get some rest," Sally waved after his retreating back.

Then she returned to her lonely vigil over the sleeping Cardiff.

~TBC~


	10. Chapter 10: Back to the Fold

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

**Warning:** There are some disturbing images in the third part of this chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 10 – Back to the Fold**

In a different district of Cardiff, the immortal man known as Captain Jack Harkness (and also under half a dozen different names, most of them too exotic for mere 21st century humans to pronounce) was standing on his favourite rooftop, looking down on the sleeping city beneath. _His_ city. The one he'd chosen to protect, to return to after the Year That Never Was – the year that had changed his life profoundly.

Few people could have stood so calmly on the edge of a twenty-storey-deep abyss in such strong wind without becoming dangerously dizzy. Fortunately for him, mankind had long bred vertigo and similar weaknesses out of the human gene pool by the time of his birth – a time far in the future for the people he lived and worked with.

In fact, he _liked_ to stand there, high above the city, the safety of which had been his responsibility for quite a few years. It helped him to think when he got closer the stars that had once – in what counted as the past in his personal timeline – been his home.

Now, _home_ meant this insignificant little planet on the outskirts of the Galaxy, in the suburb of the great stellar cities. A pathetic neighbourhood, really; but it had Cardiff, it had the Hub and, most importantly, it had _Ianto_. He knew he couldn't leave Earth as long as Ianto was alive and he sometimes caught himself praying to the various deities in whose existence he didn't really believe to let his stay on Earth be a long one.

Ianto had touched his heart in ways few other people ever had.

Which was why he hated when Ianto was angry with him – like now. Angry enough to ban him from the Hub, which rarely happened. _When_ it happened, though, it was enough for him to re-evaluate his own behaviour… no matter how reluctantly.

That was the reason why he was standing on the rooftop, soul-searching: to figure out for himself why exactly was he so mad at Adam – had been from the moment the young man's identity had been revealed.

Was he angry on the Doctor's behalf? Because Adam had disappointed the Time Lord? Or was it jealousy, because the Doctor had taken the young man with them, while he'd have let _him_ blow up with that bomb over London if not for Rose? Not to mention leaving him behind on the Game Station, after he'd sacrificed himself to make their plan possible?

Why did it matter so much that the Doctor had been disappointed? He sure as hell had been unnecessarily cruel to Adam who, while definitely a git, wasn't truly evil. Why was he, Jack, still blaming Adam for disappointing the Doctor, while he wasn't blaming the Doctor for leaving the young man behind with a piece of highly advanced technology in his head that could have gotten him sliced and diced in some secret government lab and thrown over the balance of power all over the planet?

And it had been the ninth Doctor, too, not the recent one with the regeneration that, in Tosh's opinion, had gone wrong!

Perhaps Ianto had been right. Perhaps he'd looked at the Doctor through rose-tinted glasses, holding onto an ideal that had never been the real thing. Jack sighed and began to descend from his rooftop. He needed to speak with Ianto. Not at the moment, of course; he was forbidden to return to the Hub and Ianto could be very creative when it came to retaliation. But first thing in the morning.

* * *

The flat of Maggie Hopley – that was the suicidal blonde's name, according to the name shield on her door – was nothing Adam had expected. He'd thought it would be a cosy, girly place, with an abundance of family photos, cushions, plush animals and other knick-knacks, all kept in soft colours… instead, it was an almost shockingly bleak flat with stark white walls everywhere and almost empty.

The only thing breaking the strong monotony was a framed picture of a laughing man on the mantelpiece… the same man as on the folded photo Adam had found on the street.

"That's Brian," Maggie said in a flat, emotionless voice, heavy with old pain. "Today's my wedding anniversary," she looked at Adam with dry, haunted eyes. "My perfect day..."

"What happened?" Adam asked quietly. He could guess that it had been something bad, but perhaps she'd want to talk about it.

"Road accident," she replied, closing her eyes as if trying to chase away the images burned onto her retina forever. "On our way from the church to our honeymoon. We'd been married less than an hour. I was picking confetti out of my hair when it happened. In the next moment, I was climbing out of the overturned car, my wedding dress full of blood and Brian… Brian was dead."

"Shit," Adam muttered uncomfortably, not really knowing what to say. "I'm…"

Maggie waved off his awkward attempt to comfort her. "Sorry, yeah. I know. Helps me a fat lot, doesn't it?"

"Not really," Adam admitted. "And you've waited until your wedding anniversary to kill yourself? Why?"

Maggie shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Perhaps not," Adam allowed. "I'm just curious. Why have you waited?"

Maggie now turned around to look at him directly.

"Cos I _believe_ people," she said, her voice harsh with pain. "I-I believe them when they said it would get better. So, what do _you_ think? Do you – do you _really_ think it's going to get any better?"

For a while Adam remained silent, realising with a certain amount of shame that his problems were manageable compared with Maggie's loss. Sure, he had to be on constant alert, like some haunted best, but at least he hadn't lost anyone dear to his heart.

Or hasn't he? Had his Mum washing her hands on him not something akin? Well, at least she was still alive; even though she'd proved not to be the Mum he thought he'd known all his life. Besides, killing oneself over a loss, no matter how tragic it might be, seemed way too irreversible to him.

Maggie, however, appeared to see it differently. She took the framed photo of her late husband from the mantelpiece and looked at it forlornly. "What do I do now?"

Adam hesitated a bit before answering because who was _he_ to give this broken girl any advice? His own record of right decisions was woefully short, to be honest.

"Obviously, I can't tell you what to do," he finally said. "But you've got a choice. If you think your life as it's now is too much to bear, then go for it. But if you think there might be a chance; that there might be some hope, just a little joy that makes your life worth living, then you should reconsider. Even if it's only having a cigarette, or that first sip of hot tea on a cold morning, if there's even a tiny glimmer of light then you should take that chance. Cos once you've done that final jump, you _will_ be gone. And it will be too late to change your mind on your way down."

Maggie remained quiet for a while, thinking about his words. Then her glance fell onto his – well, _Andy's_ – backpack and her eyes widened in surprise.

"Your backpack… it's glowing from the inside!"

Adam turned around and saw the light seeping through the thick canvas of the bag. He swore under his breath, kneeled and opened it on the floor, taking out the Pulse. Bursts of ribbons of light continue to fluctuate out from the device – it was an awesome sight to behold.

"Dammit, it's loading up again," Adam started to panic in earnest. "How on Earth am I supposed to shut it down?"

Maggie came over to him and kneeled to look at the Pulse, enraptured by the unearthly light show.

"What _is_ this?" she breathed, almost reverently.

"I haven't got the faintest," Adam confessed. "A piece of unknown technology Torchwood wanted me to get from Mr. Parker's house, as they thought it might e dangerous."

"Why? What does it do?" Maggie asked, reaching out tentatively to touch it.

"That's the problem… no-one has a clue," Adam replied, gently shoving her hands aside. "No, don't touch it! I was holding it in my hands when the energy build-up reached its peak and it transported me all the way here from the Parker residence."

"Transported?" Maggie repeated doubtfully. "Like in Star Trek or what?"

"As I said: we don't bloody _know_!" Adam replied. "Torchwood intended to study it, find out what makes it tick, and then shut it away safely."

"Won't they be looking for you then?" Maggie asked.

Adam laughed bitterly. "Oh, they will. And now that this… this _thing_ has started giving off energy again, they'll easily be able to locate me," he sighed. "I should go. I don't want you to get in trouble because me. They can be ruthless."

"I know,' Maggie said calmly. "My uncle used to work for Torchwood Three– until 2000, when his boss killed the whole team – including himself."

"His boss?" Adam shivered. "You mean Captain Harkness?"

He already knew that before Ianto Captain Harkness had been the Torchwood leader, although no-one cared to tell him why and when the change in power had happened.

Maggie shook her head. "Nah, it was some bloke called Alex Hopkins."

"How comes that Captain Harkness survived then?" Adam asked in suspicion.

"I don't know and I don't really care," Maggie replied with a shrug. "My Mum never told me much about Aunt Madelyn – _or_ about Torchwood. Perhaps she didn't know, either. You should ask Andy Davidson; he had an uncle in Torchwood, too, and he's even gone to work for them as far as I know."

"True," Adam said. "I've met him; he's a nice bloke."

"He won't help you to get away, though," Maggie warned. "He may be nice as a person, but he's still Torchwood. They don't let anyone just walk out on them."

"I know," Adam sighed. "Not with their memories intact, that is."

"What do you mean?" Maggie frowned.

"They've got this amnesia pill," Adam explained. "They give it to you, and you forget you've ever met them."

"Why didn't they make _you_ forget?" Maggie asked logically.

Adam shrugged. "It wouldn't do me any good, with this thing still in my head. It's kinda hard to forget when it comes out every time someone clicks their fingers around me."

"Why don't they take it out then?"

Again, it was a logical question. Adam began to understand that Maggie was an intelligent woman, death wish notwithstanding.

"They can't," he replied. "Not without causing me serious brain damage. They don't know how to."

"They weren't the ones who put it in your head?"

Maggie's surprise was understandable. Given her _very_ sporadic knowledge about Torchwood, it would have been a logical assumption.

Adam shook his head. "No; it was a… a different organisation. It didn't even happen here."

Maggie's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Are you a spy or whatnot?"

"Nah," Adam's short laughter lacked any true amazement. "Just stupid. A bit greedy, too, perhaps. Let's just say that I got more than I'd bargained for and now I have to live with the consequences."

"What _is_ that thing in your head anyway?" Maggie asked.

"A very advanced computer interface," It was a gross simplification, of course, but as close to the truth as he could get without giving her any information she wouldn't be able to believe anyway.

Maggie nodded, accepting the half-truth – and why shouldn't she? New technology was coming out each day with a speed hat would have been unimaginable fifty or even twenty years ago.

"I bet the ones who put it in your head would want it back," she said with the certainty of one who'd seen lots of Johnny Mnemonic-style films.

Adam laughed humourlessly again.

"Nah; _those_ guys don't care. But a lot of other organisations would happily dissect my head to see what makes it tick."

Maggie looked at him like someone who'd just had a lightbulb moment.

"Is _that_ why you're with Torchwood?" she asked. "For protection?"

Adam nodded reluctantly. "Sort of; it wasn't exactly my idea. I was found by unit… in a place where I wasn't supposed to be – long story, it was another transporter accident. They called in Torchwood and Captain Harkness picked me up and brought me to Cardiff. They… umm… didn't ask if I actually _wanted_ their protection."

"Be grateful that they didn't," Maggie said seriously. "Aunt Madelyn always said that UNIT was a hundred times worse than Torchwood."

"Was she supposed to tell you such things?" Adam asked in surprise.

Maggie grinned; a broad, honest grin, the first true one he'd seen on her face.

"Of course not," she said. "But I was a young girl with an avid interest in espionage films and nagged her all the time about Torchwood. So much that she sometimes slipped. Besides, it ain't so that Torchwood would be such a big secret. They've been around since the nineteenth century. People ought to have noticed them, even without those big, black cars with the Torchwood label on them."

"Yeah, the car with the huge label surprised me, too," Adam grinned back at her. "A bit obvious for a supposedly secret organisation."

"The worst-kept secret in Cardiff," Maggie agreed.

They were quiet for a moment. Then she started speaking again, choosing her words carefully.

"I don't want to tell you what to do or what to leave, but… _if_ you ask me, I think you should go back to them. You aren't safe with that… that _thing_ in your head, and you can't keep running on your own forever. You don't really have that many chances left, you know."

"I know," Adam sighed. "But they would think I'd run away from them. They would shut me away in one of those cells in the basement and never let me out again. I… I don't want to rot in a cell for the rest of my life."

"Would you prefer being dissected in a lab?" Maggie asked bluntly. "Besides, why wouldn't they believe you? You said this… this _device_," she waved in the direction of the Pulse that released another ribbon of light that floated and waved back and forth between them, "had transported you without your doing. They _can_ check it and prove that is what it does, can't they?"

"Probably," Adam allowed. "But the truth is… I've sabotaged a little their computers, so that I could get away if I had to. And since I didn't get the chance to log in tonight, their tracking programme must have floored by now."

"Oh, man, that was a bit stupid," Maggie bit her lower lip, thinking frantically and coming up with nothing.

"Hey!" Adam protested, "I didn't know them. Couldn't be sure they won't take my head apart."

"What about now?" Maggie asked. "Can you be sure that they won't hurt you?"

Adam allowed himself some time to think about the question. He was fairly sure that Captain Harkness would happily skin him alive, and he didn't even want to consider what _Toshiko_ would do to him for having messed up her precious Mainframe.

Fortunately for him, the final word was Ianto's to speak, and Ianto seemed a fairly reasonable bloke. _Ianto_ would understand that the infospike in the wrong hands would be a hundred times worse than Adam's minor sabotage of the tracking system.

Hopefully.

That still didn't mean that Ianto wouldn't make him pay for it. _Creatively_. But in the end Ianto _would_ believe that he hadn't planned to bolt – not _yet_ anyway. If there was a tiny spark of hole that he _wouldn't_ end up in a cell next to the Weevils for the rest of his life, that small hope lay entirely in Ianto's hands.

Besides, Adam admitted reluctantly, what other choice did he have? Even if he managed to get out of Cardiff as originally intended – which, knowing how Mainframe watched the entire CCTV system all the time seemed less and less likely by the minute – where was he supposed to go? He was out of time, an anomaly.

There was another, completely clueless _him_, working in the states for Mr. Van Statten. He could consider himself fortunate that his presence, the fact that he'd crossed his own timeline, hadn't called the Reapers to the battlefield. He had nowhere to go – nowhere but back to Torchwood, as Maggie had suggested.

Which reminded him that she was still waiting for his answer.

"I'm not sure," he confessed. "But you were right. I have nowhere else to go. As much as I hate being shut into that base of theirs, even the cells are safer for me than living on the streets."

Maggie nodded. "Exactly. Now, are you calling a taxi or are you calling _them_ to pick you up?"

Adam laughed. It had a slightly hysterical overtone.

"You know what the funny thing is? I don't even have an address. _Or_ a phone number."

"No worries," Maggie picked up her phone. "_I do_. Aunt Madelyn gave me this number shortly before her death… just in case."

She hit the speed dial and waited for somebody to answer the call.

"Captain Harkness? I'm the niece of one of your ex-colleagues, Dr. Madelyn Conwy. I think I have something here that belongs to you. You can fetch it any time you want – but I'd prefer if you did it sooner rather than later."

* * *

Jack had returned to his – formerly Owen's – penthouse in the early hour right before dawn. He felt tense and exhausted – and he missed Ianto. The young man had become his anchor to sanity ever since his return. He couldn't even sleep without Ianto anymore. Only Ianto's solid, warm presence in his bed could keep the violent nightmares at bay.

Most of the time, it wasn't even about sex. Surely, they both liked sex – which healthy guy in his best years didn't? – but most of all, Ianto provided him with a previously unknown feeling of safety. After what he'd gone through in The Year That Never Was, Jack found, to his surprise, that he craved being held and coddled like never before.

He relished in being taken care of. And, fortunately for him, Ianto had a strong need for taking care of other people.

Sometimes he wondered if their relationship was an abusive one. Whether he used Ianto's need to be _needed_ – and that didn't simply mean coddling him. Ianto never hesitated to set him straight if he thought that was what Jack needed. Despite the enormous age difference and Jack's vast experience in life, Ianto often acted as his moral compass.

People would think it strange, but it wasn't – not really, Ianto, young, polite, unassuming, _brilliant_ Ianto was so much stronger than most people would give him credit for. Even his terrible mistakes – the Cyberwoman, or his role in opening the Rift – had been born of the strong imperative of doing the right thing.

Even if he'd been mistaken about the nature of the right thing.

God, Jack wanted to latch onto him and never let go, but that just wasn't possible. Firstly because Ianto was his own person, not some extension of Jack's and wouldn't tolerate to be treated as one. Not any longer.

Secondly – and most importantly – because there were things no-one could change. Jack was immortal. Ianto was not. Sooner or later Jack would lose him and couldn't even kill himself if the loss became too much.

Not permanently, that is. Fate was utterly inexorable.

Had Rose – sweet, loving Rose… stupid, selfish Rose – really thought she'd _saved_ him? That she'd given him _life_?

A lifelong sentence, more likely. One that would last forever.

His phone rang. He picked it up, hoping it would be Ianto calling, but the number displayed was unfamiliar.

He frowned. Who could they be and where did they have the emergency number of his phone?

Well, there was only one way to find out. He answered the call with in clipped tone.

"Torchwood."

"Captain Harkness?" the unfamiliar voice of a young woman asked. "I'm the niece of one of your ex-colleagues, Dr. Madelyn Conwy."

_That_ name brought back a flood of memories in one violent rush. The festivities on the streets at New Year's Eve 1999. Returning to the Hub after having investigated the mass poisoning that had taken down eighteen people. Him joking about the unexpected nature of the Millennium Bug…

The dead silence that greeted him in the Hub. The dead man's body on the floor, right behind the entrance, with still fresh blood upon his skin from the bullet wound in the middle of his forehead but no pulse.

Their archivist, Meirion.

Next to him the woman, Dr. Conwy, Madelyn, bleeding from the gut, her chestnut hair had come free from the French knot on the nape of her neck, her lilac blouse and charcoal grey suit jacket soiled with blood. What a brilliant scientist she had been! Jack never knew she'd had any family… well, not beyond the existence of an estranged sister.

He certainly hadn't expected from him entrusting her niece – she must have been barely more than a child back then – with the emergency number. _His_ emergency number. They'd never been close.

Alex Hopkins, sitting on a barrel, watching the countdown on the telly, clutching to that ominous silver locket. Babbling about the upcoming storm and how the twenty-first century would change everything, while the dead body of their medic was dangling from the second floor balcony.

Telling him how he'd killed everyone to spare them the horrors.

Apologising for not being able to do the same for Jack. Leaving Torchwood Three in Jack's care.

And then blowing his brain out, with Jack watching hopelessly. His blood splattering all over Jack's face, warm and sticky, with a coppery tang.

He could never get that smell out of his nose completely.

Jack shook his head, reminding himself that this was not the time for a horror trip into the past. The young woman who wasn't supposed to know this number at all wanted something from him.

"What can I do for you, miss?" he asked flatly.

If Madelyn had trusted the girl enough to give her _his_ number, she must also have told her that it was for emergencies only.

"I think I have something here that belongs to you," the girl answered. "You can fetch it any time you want – but I'd prefer if you did it sooner rather than later."

Well, _that_ could only be Adam. Or the Pulse. Or both. Torchwood Three hadn't misplaced anything else lately. Which meant he _had_ to go and fetch it. Him. Them. Whatever

"Can you give me the address?" he asked.

There was a short, surprised pause ion the other end of the connection.

"Can't you guys track the phone calls?" the girl then asked.

"Under normal circumstances we can," he replied. "But I'm not at work right now."

With some reluctance, she gave him the address and Jack rode the lift down to the garage to fetch his car. Not the Torchwood SUV – his own black jeep that would draw less attention. Speed and secrecy were at issue here.

* * *

Maggie bridged over the time of waiting with putting on the kettle. Making tea was something… normal and comforting. Something she needed when she was about to confront the infamous Captain Harkness of Aunt Madelyn's stories.

"I'd love to offer you something else than just black tea," she said to Adam apologetically, "but the truth is, I haven't got anything else in the cupboard. I've cleared everything out before… well, you know. I don't like leaving a mess in my wake."

She cleaned out the cupboards, the fridge, the chest of drawers, the wardrobe… everything. She'd donated all her clothes, books and what little jewellery she had possessed to charity. She'd even quit the flat, effective from the next day. Only Brian's framed picture and the tea had got overlooked somehow.

Adam nodded, understanding what she meant.

"Do you still want to jump?" he asked.

Maggie didn't answer at once. Instead, she watched the Pulse for a while, which had blossomed to even more ribbons of light, all growing and twisting and curling like the tentacles of some living, albeit completely alien, creature.

It was a mesmerising sight.

"I don't know," she finally admitted. "I mean I was so sure before I'd run into you, you know? I've been preparing for this day for at least three months. Giving all my things away. Selling the car, quitting the flat, quitting my job. I wanted a clean cut. I wanted the pain to end."

She paused, her voice lowering to a murmur.

"But now… I'm no longer sure I still want to just give up. This thing," she waved in the direction of the Pulse, "it changed the way I was looking at the world. A world where such beauty exists… perhaps it's worth living in."

"I'm glad you reconsidered," Adam said simply. "Then my coming to Cardiff _was_ good for something, after all."

"Meeting you _has_ helped," Maggie admitted with a sad little smile. "I don't think I really want to jump any more. But what am I supposed to do with myself? I've burned all bridges behind me. I've got nothing left butt he clothes I'm wearing and half a package of cigarettes."

"Perhaps a change of scenery would help, then," a voice with an unmistakable American accent said.

They turned around and saw Captain Harkness' tall and broad figure filling the doorframe. How he'd got in was a question of some interest, as Maggie clearly remembered having locked the door behind them.

He was not alone, though, and the young blonde girl in the black leather jacket and military fatigues showed him a thin, pencil-like device triumphantly.

"Told you!" she said in a high-pitched voice, full of delight. "It's _very_ good at opening doors!"

"I know that, Jenny," Captain Harkness said with a tolerant, almost paternal smile. "Your Dad used to have one of those, remember?"

"Yeah, but mine is prettier," the girl replied with child-like pride; then she spotted the Pulse and her jaw dropped in amazement. "Oh, my! If that isn't a Chimaeran scouting device!"

"A _what_?" Captain Harkness asked with a frown.

"Some kind of First Contact vessel," the girl explained. "The inhabitants of the Chimaeran system – it used to have four inhabited planets _and_ a densely populated asteroid belt between them and the outer gas giants of the system, just like yours – never developed interstellar spaceflight. Instead, they sent out these probes into deep space, with a map of their system, pictures, images and voices, music… in the hope that other races, the ones with spacefaring capability, will visit them."

"I assume it worked, since you know about them," Captain Harkness said.

The girl nodded. "Yeah, my Dad visited their planet in the late 39th century… unfortunately, so did the Daleks, shortly after him. Such a crying shame; Chimaerans were a delightful people. Very fond of music and waterfalls."

"You mean they no longer exist?" Adam asked, saddened by the fact that the creators of the Pulse would be gone.

Jenny shrugged. "Strictly seen, they still do… and will continue to exist for the next eighteen centuries or so. Temporal mechanics are always tricky. I think this is what Dad calls a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey…thing," she added thoughtfully.

"Is your Dad insane?" Maggie asked suspiciously, cos the whole conversation was getting a definite Monthy Python-like quality.

Jenny grinned. "Some people think so, yeah. But unlike them, he usually knows what he's talking about. Well… most of the time anyway."

"So this… this scouting device is basically the same thing the NASA used to send into space in the 1970s?" Captain Harkness asked. Jenny nodded. "What do you suggest we do with it? We can't allow it to broadcast all the time… or transport people spontaneously from one place to another. Sooner or later, the wrong people ought to take notice."

"Well, for starters we can shut it down," Jenny pointed her pencil-like silver tool at the Pulse.

The tip of the tool glowed blue and the light show of the Pulse gradually decreased to a faint golden glow. Jenny beamed happily.

"See? Easy-peasy. Now if we could install this into my ship, its energy could be rerouted to the engines, instead of just going off to space, and the _Donna Noble_ could become spaceborne again."

"Excuse me?" Maggie interrupted. "Are you telling about spaceships? _Real_ spaceships that can travel between the stars? And _you _having one? Are you sure your Dad is the only insane one in the family?"

Captain Harkness scowled at her – he seemed awfully protective of the girl – but Jenny clearly didn't take any offence.

"I know it's hard to believe," she said gently. "But I can assure you that yes, I do own a spaceship – although a small and currently wrecked one – in which I came to Earth rather accidentally a couple of months ago."

"Yeah, sure," Maggie said doubtfully. "So you're some sort of alien, right?"

"That I am," Jenny agreed with a wide smile.

Maggie shook her head. "You don't look like those Roswell guys."

"Not all differences are visible on the outside," Jenny replied simply.

Captain Harkness interrupted their banter with a rather unhappy scowl. "Jenny, you shouldn't tell people such things on a whim. We've talked about this. Repeatedly. The population of Earth isn't ready to accept the fact of extraterrestrial life, despite the numerous full-blown alien invasions especially Britain had suffered in the recent years."

"They _will_ have to face the facts, sooner or later," Jenny said.

Captain Harkness nodded. "Sure. But it ain't your job to force them… unless you want to end up in an insane asylum. Or, what's worse, in some UNIT prison. Cost he people who _know_ about alien life for a fact would go great lengths to keep it concealed."

His cold blue eyes turned to Maggie and his voice gained a somewhat ominous undertone.

"Which raises the question: whatever are we supposed to do with _you_, Ms Hopley? You seem to know things you ain't supposed to; and we can't afford the luxury of letting you babble about it to anyone."

~TBC~


	11. Chapter 11: Negotiations

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

It might seem a little strange that – after Andy – now Maggie, too, used to have someone in Torchwood. However, I imagine that the ones close to Torchwood members might be drawn to Torchwood, somehow.

* * *

**Chapter 11 – Negotiations**

The tone of the erstwhile Torchwood Three leader frightened Maggie very much. She didn't want to forget his day; the day that should have been the day of her death, yet, miraculously, became the birthday of renewed hope. She backed away from the man I the heavy woollen coat, so much the same as he'd supposedly looked in Aunt Madelyn's stories that it was downright frightening, her eyes wide with panic.

"No!" she hissed. "There's no way you're forcing that sodding amnesia pill of yours down my throat, Jack Harkness! I won't take it and that's final!"

"I don't think that's your decision," the main said coldly.

"Neither is it yours, technically," the blonde girl – Jenny – interfered, sounding at least a decade older than before. "It's _Ianto_'s. And considering how much she seems to know about Torchwood, dosing would be a tricky thing anyway. Unless you want to turn her into vegetable – and she doesn't deserve _that_."

Captain Harkness seemed to hesitate and Jenny kept beating the proverbial iron as long as it was still hot.

"Besides, we _got_ what we've come for. We've found and neutralised the device; and we've found your runaway resident. Let's go back to the Hub and have Ianto decide what to do about him… _and_ her," she nodded in Maggie's direction.

"And If I don't _want_ to go with you?" Maggie had no intention to walk into that rat trap where Aunt Madelyn had been murdered by her insane boss.

Jenny walked over to her and laid a small, surprisingly strong hand upon her forearm.

"I think it would be better for all parties involved if you did," she said. "Don't worry; they won't hurt you. Ianto is a fair person and a lot less hot-headed than Jack here," she grinned and actually _winked_ at the intimidating Captain Harkness. "Just come with us, please. I'm sure we'll be able to find a way that would be acceptable for everyone."

"What about _him_?" Maggie asked, meaning Adam.

"Well, his cards are probably a bit worse than you," Jenny admitted. "But I'm sure he'll be fine, too."

"Don't make promises you may not be able to keep," Captain Harkness warned her seriously.

Jenny shrugged. It was obvious that she had no doubt about the outcome of things. But Adam had just had enough.

"Why aren't we dealing with this here and now, since you've already made up your mind about me?" he snapped. "In fact, why don't you just kill me? It would be more merciful than what your precious Doctor did to me, leaving me behind like this, half man and half computer, in a time not yet ready to accept such things?"

"Don't tempt me," Captain Harkness said in a low, dangerous voice.

"Oh, I'm not," Adam replied bitterly. "In fact, I'm offering you the golden opportunity to get rid of me, once and forever. Look, I'm making it easy for you!"

He clicked his fingers. The infospike dutifully emerged, opening up his skull and revealing part of his unprotected brain.

"C'mon, Captain," he taunted, "why don't you just put your gun into the hole and blow my brains out directly? That would surely destroy the interface, too, and you'd hit two birds with the same stone."

"Are you gone mad?" Maggie hissed, looking everywhere except at his exposed brain. "He won't have any scruples killing you. He's done it before, without as much as blinking."

Captain Harkness scowled. "That's what Madelyn told you? That I was Torchwood's executioner?"

"Weren't you?" Maggie asked, more steadily than eve she would have expected.

For a moment she thought Captain Harkness would shoot _her_ instead of Adam. For a moment she'd almost welcome it. It would have solved all her problems; and it was still better than wake up in some sort of insane asylum, without memories, without even knowing who she was.

She didn't need Adam to tell her about Retcon. Aunt Madelyn had warned her to keep well below Torchwood's radar. Told her what happened to those who _didn't_.

"That's enough, calm down, all of you," Jenny's voice broke the testosterone-heavy tension with surprising authority. "No-one is getting killed, especially not _here_. We're all gonna back to the Hub and sit down to discuss things like the responsible adults we are. Or pretend to be," she added, not looking at anyone in particular.

Maggie found that she liked Jenny a lot, whether she was an alien or not.

* * *

Ianto's hopes for a few hours of restful sleep pretty much evaporated after he'd first woke up from a particularly vivid nightmare. One featuring himself, choking some unknown blonde girl to the death in a dark, rain-soaked alley.

He sat up on the narrow cot that counted as a bed in the restroom, making a mental note (for the umpteenth time, as there was always something more important) to have Rhys throw out these shoddy old things and get something more comfortable for the night shift. They spent night after night here when on call; they deserved to be able to rest properly.

The pressure building up behind his eyes signalled an oncoming killed headache and he sighed wearily. He hadn't been prone to headaches before joining Torchwood One and becoming an Archivist. The doctors at Headquarters had guessed that the suicide device planted in his brain was responsible for him now reacting to pressure with these almost-migraines, but here was nothing they could do to help him.

There were definite disadvantages of using barely known alien technology.

Resigned to his fate, he climbed out of the… _thing_ that – by severe exaggeration and by the lack of a better name – they still called a bed and paddled over to the communal showers. Hot water usually helped him to relax _and_ it loosened the cramps in his leg that had kept causing him problems ever since his fateful encounter with the _eraser_.

The Arcateenian healer _had_ repaired most of the mental damage caused by the telepathic attack and the nanogenes did their best to repair the damaged nerves, but recovery was very slow, to his endless frustration. He knew it was a miracle – or rather the achievement of Chulan medical technology – that he wasn't completely paralysed to begin with, but it was still hard.

Sometimes he wondered whether he'd be able to do field work ever again. Between the limp and the headaches he was capable of dealing with the paperwork and the Archives as always – well, _almost_ – but running after Weevils, for one, was out of the question and would remain so for quite some time yet. He couldn't even climb up to Myfanwy's nest anymore, and strange as it might sound, he missed the cuddling with their pterodactyl.

He closed his eyes in defeat as he was standing under the shower and felt the hot water pounding down his whole body. He was in his mid-twenties: an age when other people were at their most active, building themselves a life, founding a family, pursuing various interests, delighting in their youth and strength. Something he, too, had dreamt about when still with Lisa.

Yet here he was now, barely more than a cripple, traumatised in more ways than he'd care to count. Burdened with a responsibility. That had driven his predecessor, Alex Hopkins – a good, decent man according to Jack – mad enough with despair to murder his entire team and then kill himself. All in the name of sparing them the worst.

Life was definitely _not_ fair.

Sometimes he'd have gladly switched places with his old schoolfriend, Idris Hopper, now working for Mr Grainger at the City Hall. Being mobbed at the workplace was not a pleasant thing, for sure, and Idris had more than his fair share of _that_, both for being gay and for having served as the ill-remembered Mayor Blaine's PD – but it was still infinitely better than being the Torchwood Director.

Even though Idris probably wouldn't believe it.

The door of the shower room opened and Ianto was grateful for the distraction from his increasingly depressing track of thoughts. Something must have occurred. Sally wouldn't bother him _here_ if it weren't something important, and everything was better than his current wallowing in self-pity.

He switched off the shower, snatched a large towel and wrapped it around his waist, padding out of the shower cabin barefooted. Sally wouldn't be bothered by his semi-naked state. Modesty was the first thing that usually fell victim when one started to work for Torchwood.

Another little thing taken from them without compensation.

"What happened?" he asked quietly.

It couldn't be something big or dangerous, according to Sally's carefree expression. She'd only come down to the showers because he'd left his comm in the restroom, apparently.

Sally, not the least embarrassed indeed, looked him up and down with a critical eye.

"You're still way too skinny," she declared disapprovingly; then she apparently noticed the dark shadows under his eyes. "Headache?"

"Oncoming," Ianto replied with a dismissive gesture. "What happened, Sally? I hope you're here for a reason, other than to ogle my naked body?"

"What's wrong with _that_?" she returned, grinning. "It's a nice one, even if a little skinny; and besides, Jack ogles you all the time."

"Yeah, but I sleep with Jack," Ianto pointed out. "I don't sleep with _you_."

She tilted he head to the side, still grinning. "Is that an invitation, Mister Jones?"

"You wish!" Ianto couldn't help but grin back at her.

She never failed to cheer him up, even though their light-hearted banter was completely innocent and without any hidden agenda. They were roughly of the same age, they shared certain interests – the love for James Bond films, for starters – and her company was one he'd learned to value during the recent year. Being with her felt like being _normal_ again – like hanging out with mates, have a beer, talk about rugby and films and stuff and generally just having fun. Something he'd missed ever since Canary Wharf.

"Perhaps I do," she teased; then she became serious again. "Anyway, I came down to tell you that we've got Adam again… _and_ that alien device."

"That was fast," Ianto whistled, impressed. "Good job, Sally. I hadn't expected you to locate them so fast."

"I haven't," she admitted fairly. "Adam seems to have had enough mother wit to realise his best chances were _with_ us and decided to come back voluntarily."

"That was sensible of him," Ianto was relieved. They were stretched thin enough without having to organise a hunt for their runaway… _guest_ all over Cardiff – and beyond.

He'd still have a serious discussion with the young man, perhaps have Tosh come up with a better surveillance method, but the fact that Adam had come back on his own spoke for him. Perhaps he wasn't a lost case, after all.

"There's a problem, though," Sally continued. "He was taken in by some woman who knows more about Torchwood than she ought to.

Ianto snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Half Cardiff knows more about Torchwood than they ought to," he reminded her. "The Rift has been here since the 1890s and so has been Torchwood Cardiff – that's more than a century! Lots of people have worked for Torchwood in that time, and those people had relatives and friends who have inevitably picked up things, even without Jack's silly idea of having the name painted on the SUV in foot-tall letters or throwing his weight around whether it is necessary or not."

"I thought you'd Retcon the witnesses," Sally said.

"We couldn't Retcon everyone back to their diapers each time something unusual happened," Ianto replied. "That would have caused serious harm to the local gene pool."

"You mean more damage than the Welsh already have?" Sally grinned.

Ianto gave her a dirty look that was made completely inefficient by the twitching of the corner of his mouth.

"Anyway," she continued, "they're bringing back both Adam and the woman. I've instructed Mainframe to get us all available CCTV footage from their meeting, just in case."

"Good thinking," Ianto nodded. "All right, I'm getting dressed now and will be with you in twenty minutes to make coffee. The really good one."

"I thought you still aren't allowed to have caffeine," Sally said in surprise.

Ianto sighted. "I'm not. But sniffing the coffee vapours helps, too… _if_ it's the really good coffee, that is."

* * *

Maggie didn't know what she'd expected the secret Torchwood base to be like, but it certainly hadn't been _this_. Not this immense, cavernous interior, not the sewer chick combined with the high-end technology she was sure couldn't be found anywhere else on the planet – and most definitely not a pterodactyl drawing its lazy circles high up, just under the domed ceiling.

How the hell did all this fit under the Millennium Centre anyway? Through some weird sort of space distortion? She was a technical writer, not a scientist, but she'd been good enough at physics and maths at school to come up with several possibilities that could work.

At least in science fiction.

Cos they certainly _were_ under the Millennium Centre. She recognised the water tower from Roald Dahl Plass that clearly went all the way down to the bottom of the base, the falling water pooling around its lower end before being redirected by several narrow canals and led away somewhere even deeper.

Speaking of which, wasn't the moisture bad for all that sensitive electronic equipment? Or had the computers some kind of special isolation that prevented them from getting wet?

She looked around again, taking in the glass-walled offices and research labs on the upper level, the balconies that ran around the whole place, the eerie, otherworldly atmosphere of it. It seemed unlikely that such a place would exist anywhere else but in Batman films, and yet there she had the hard proof that it did.

This was where Aunt Madelyn had worked. Where she had died in her best years, when she'd still had her entire life before her. Not by some murderous alien or dangerous, malfunctioning alien tech. No; she'd died by the hand of her own boss; by the hand of someone she'd considered a friend.

Maggie shook her head to free it from the memories. She had to concentrate on her own fate right now. She would not let them take her memories; of Torchwood, of Aunt Madelyn, of Brian… of last night when she'd found the strength to go on with her life. She just wasn't sure _how_ to persuade them to allow her to remember.

This was Torchwood, after all. And Torchwood was notoriously ruthless.

Her attention was caught by a young man in a sharp, charcoal-grey three-piece suit, leaning on a light metallic cane. He was coming from what seemed to be a kitchenette, if the huge, antiqued coffee machine of high-polished chrome and brass was any indication. He was neatly groomed, his white-striped navy-blue tie in a perfect Windsor knot, his dress shoes polished to perfection.

He had a friendly, albeit somewhat bland smile plastered over his face but deep shadows under his blue-grey eyes. Most likely the PA of the Torchwood Director, Maggie decided. Those poor sods always got worked ragged, being responsible for _everything_ that was going on – from their bosses' schedule through personnel matters down to playing teaboy. Or barista, depending on said bosses' preferences.

He limped closer, switched the cane into his left hand and extended the right one to Maggie.

"Ms Hopley, I presume?" he had that peculiar, lilting accent only people born and bred in Wales could produce. "How nice of you to come here so that we could talk. I'm Director Jones."

Maggie shook the proffered hand, wishing the earth would open beneath her feet and swallow her in the whole. How could she _possibly_ have mistaken the boss of the whole place for the coffee boy?

"Oh, don't worry about it!" Director Jones replied, making her realise, to her mortal embarrassment, that she must have spoken her thoughts out loud. "Happens to most people at first. My predecessor," he added with an amused glance at Captain Harkness, "made them believe that being rude and wearing outlandish clothes are the basic preference of all Torchwood Directors. I happen to agree, but I haven't had the time to disparage those prejudices yet."

Maggie gave him a wary look. "So you're the boss here?"

"Officially," he deadpanned. "The sad truth is, however, that my minions pretty much do what they want, no matter what I tell them to do."

"Now _that_ is a blatant lie," the pretty blonde behind the insanely complicated surveillance equipment declared. "Don't listen to him, Ms Hopley; and, more importantly, don't _believe_ him. All those pleasant manners are just a mask he wears to mislead people. In fact, he's a slave driver and a micro-manager of the worst sort."

"Guilty as charged," the small, polite (and most likely false) smile of Director Jones grew into a broad, honest grin. "You should not scare our guest though, Sally. I'm sure she heard enough weird things about this place from her aunt to last for a lifetime. Dr. Conwy is said to have a sarcastic nature; and a pretty low opinion of her co-workers."

"And _that_ was at a time when Torchwood actually had a competent staff," Captain Harkness added, grinning like a loon.

"Oi, Harkness!" a wiry, dark-haired, weasel-faces man – based on his white lab coat probably a doctor – protested indignantly. "Before you'd start dissing the staff I'd like to remind you that _you_ were the one who chose to hire us… _including_ Teaboy here."

"A little more respect, Dr. Harper, if I may ask," Director Jones said in mock offence.

"Try earning it," the doctor replied – and then they all laughed.

All except Adam who looked extremely and Maggie herself who was completely bewildered. _This_ was Torchwood? The gloomy, dangerous, often insane Torchwood of Aunt Madelyn? This bunch of mostly young people, with a weird sense of humour, set in a futuristic scenario that would have made Batman die from envy?

"Well, then," Director Jones said when the hilarity was over, at least for the time being, "I think Jenny should take the device to the lab so that our resident geeks can work with it. Tosh, Jack and I will relocate to the conference room with our guests to discuss with them their choices. And Owen, I'd like you to join us."

"What for?" the doctor in the white lab coat asked in obvious surprise. "I'm just your medic."

"You're our _chief_ medic, and that makes you part of the senior staff," Director Jones corrected. "Besides, you are – were – a member of the old team and rank has its privileges."

Therefore they relocated to a conference room indeed; one that looked fairly average, save for the large video screen embedded in one of the walls, and were served the best coffee Maggie had ever tasted in her entire life. Then Director Jones – or Ianto as he intended to be called – cut to the core of things without preamble.

"Ms Hopley, before your arrival I've had the chance to study the file of your aunt as well as the CCTV footage from the area where you're living. Well… actually, Sally did it, she's our communications expert. We also did a complete background check on you, for which I'm sure you can guess the reason. I understand that you intended to commit suicide tonight?"

He asked the sensitive question matter-of factly, without the slightest trace of pity or judgement in his voice.

Maggie nodded.

"However, it's also my understanding that you've reconsidered, after having met Adam and seen the alien device, correct?" he continued.

Maggie nodded again.

"Am I also correct about you having quit your flat, your job and given away all your personal belongings in preparation for ending your life?" Director Jones continued in the same factual, emotionless manner.

Maggie nodded a third time.

"I see," Director Jones said thoughtfully, and for some reason Maggie had the feeling that he did, in fact, understand. A very old soul seemed to hide behind that youthful face; old and tired and having seen more than any human being should have seen.

"And you do want to keep your memories, especially the ones that inspired you _not_ to kill yourself after all, am I right?" he then asked.

"Yes," Maggie said. "Please, don't make me forget. My memories are all that's left to me. If you think it's dangerous for me – or for _you_ – if I remember, I'd rather you executed me. I know Torchwood has done that in the past."

"Not on _my_ watch," Director Jones said coldly. "I'm not having people killed, unless they're a danger for the rest of this city, which you most definitely aren't."

"But I know too much, don't I?" Maggie murmured, because there was definitely a _but_.

Director Jones nodded. "You7 do; but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Not if you're willing to leave Cardiff, where the risk of slipping something to old friends by accident is too high."

"Leave Cardiff?" she repeated, stunned. She'd lived her all her life, never got any further than Swansea – and never wanted to.

Director Jones shrugged. "Since you've got rid of everything you've possessed, moving wouldn't be a difficult task, I imagine."

"True enough," she allowed. "But I don't want to live in foreign countries. Where would you send me anyway?"

"Not too far," he replied, smiling. "Our sister branch in Glasgow, Torchwood Two, is about to build a new team. Right now, they're just an office run by one man who needs help. Desperately. I'm sure Sir Archibald would welcome a technical writer of your skill and experience. He's an honest, old-fashioned gentleman but digital archiving isn't exactly his forte."

"Digital archiving?" Maggie found that prospect interesting. "I've done a bit of that at my last workplace.

"Which is the reason why I'd like to send you to Torchwood Two," Director Jones gave her a brief, wry smile. "You'll have to sign the general secrets act, of course, but as you'll see, Torchwood employees are paid quite handsomely to keep our secrets."

"But what if this Sir Archibald doesn't _want_ a technical writer on his staff?" Maggie asked, warming up to the idea of moving to Glasgow. "Or if he's already got his eye on someone else?"

"It wouldn't matter," Director Jones replied with a shrug. "The Torchwood Director has authority over all existing branches. Sir Archibald will accept whomever I send him. Period. I don't really think he's even begun to look, though. He likes to take his time – even if he doesn't actually have any."

"You mean he's _lazy_?" Maggie grinned.

To her surprise, the Torchwood Director grinned back at her.

"That would be a somewhat disrespectful term, speaking of someone of the lesser Scottish nobility… however, a most accurate one," he answered. "Sir Archibald likes to contemplate his tasks rather than actually _doing_ them, you see."

Maggie laughed. That sounded like a lot of people she knew – including her father. Who'd be surprised by her sudden decision to move to Glasgow, but not half as shocked as he'd been, had she actually jumped from that rooftop.

"People will understand that you'd want a new start after a year of mourning," Director Jones said quietly. "And Glasgow is a big city; your quality of life won't be any lower than it was in Cardiff. You'll have plenty of opportunities to meet new people, to make new friends. You'll be safer there, away from the Rift."

That was all very true, of course. Leaving Cardiff where every street, every sound, every smell reminded her of Brian and of her terrible loss would be a relief. Building a new life for herself somewhere else would be a challenge to occupy her mind; to keep her sane. And without the Rift and the weird stuff it spewed out on a whim, working for Torchwood wouldn't be any more dangerous than any other job.

Besides, she'd been willing to die, just earlier in this very night. What did she have to lose?

"All right," she said after some consideration. "I'll do it."

"Good," Director Jones said, obviously relieved. "I'll speak with Sir Archibald first thing in the morning and mail him your file. Just the basic CV, don't worry, it'll be up to you how much you tell him about the rest."

"What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" she asked. "I have nowhere to go and no money for a hotel. I have literally nothing but the clothes I'm wearing."

"You can stay in one of our safe houses," Director Jones replied, "and I'll authorise an advance on your first payment, so that you can get at least some basic necessities again. The first couple of months will be something of a struggle, I imagine, but you'll manage."

"Do you want to buy some of your stuff back, eventually?" the sweet-faced Japanese woman the others called Tosh asked. "We can track your things down easily enough."

Maggie shook her head. "The old books and films, the ones that truly meant something to me, I didn't have the heart to give away. They went to my Dad. I can get them again from him. The rest was what we'd got together with Brian," her voice broke just a little, "and I think I'm better off without them."

"Call us when you want your books delivered to Glasgow," Director Jones said. "Rhys – that's our general support guy – can organise free transport for you. We'll stay in touch anyway; the two branches keep each other up to date."

Maggie nodded. "Thanks. What will become of _him_, though?" she added, looking at Adam. "I know he screwed up and you're probably mad at him, but I owe him everything. Meeting him _did_ save my life, you know."

"Good for you," Tosh glared at Adam who became stark white under the weight of her scrutiny. "I'll still have his head on a plate for messing with Mainframe. _No-one_ messes with Mainframe and walks away to tell the tale. I'm serious, Ianto," she added, turning to their boss.

"He won't just _walk away_," Director Jones said. "We'll stick to the original plan and send him to Torchwood House. With Jenny and whomever I can borrow from Colonel Mace. There's no phone sing there, the landlines are secured, and no other living person for miles, save the custodian of the House. And he can make himself useful in the Archives. They're still in a sorry state."

"Would that be safe?" Captain Harkness asked, speaking for the first time during the briefing. "I don't feel comfortable with him around sensitive stuff."

"There isn't any, not anymore," Director Jones reassured him. "Sir Archibald and I have been shifting stuff between Torchwood House and Torchwood Two for almost a year by now. We've even moved the most… erm… endangered pieces to outlying storehouses in different towns. You'd know it, too, if you could be bothered to actually _read_ your memos before you'd delete them."

Captain Harkness muttered something under his breath about paperwork being boring but Director Jones ignored him summarily. His ice blue eyes were fixed on Adam's pale face.

"Understand this," he said in a calm, even voice that was more frightening than any spectacular rage he might have worked up for good effect. "This is the very last chance I'm willing to give you. Screw up again and I'll have you Retconned so far back to your diapers that you won't even remember how to use a chamberpot properly. Have I made myself clear?"

Adam swallowed with visible effort. "Yes, sir."

"Good," Director Jones said. "I won't warn you again," he rose, reaching for his cane. "Ms Hopley, I'll have someone take you to the safe house that's currently empty. I'll also ask Emma, my secretary, to pick you up tomorrow and go shopping for clothes with you. Adam, you're restricted to your quarters for the next seventy-two hours; that should give you time to think about your adventure – and Tosh to calm down a little. After that, you can return to your assigned duties."

He limped to the door, leaning heavily on his cane. On the threshold, he looked back for a moment. "I think I'll take the day off. Tosh, can you run things for me, assuming that the Rift behaves?"

"Sure," she smiled at him gently. "Go home and get some rest. Jack and I will manage whatever may come up."

"Actually," he said, glancing at Captain Harkness meaningfully," I was thinking of giving _Jack_ the day off, too… unless an emergency happens."

Captain Harkness broke into a wide, white grin that almost split his face in two. Maggie thought she'd go blind from it.

"Hey, Mister Jones, I thought you'd never ask!" he shouted in delight.

"I'm not _asking_," Director Jones corrected. "I'm giving you the day off. Of course, should you feel the need for some company, I _might_ be persuaded to pay you a visit – or allow you to visit me."

"Couldn't you just get a room and _not_ force us to watch your mating dance?" Dr. Harper muttered in disgust. The others just laughed.

"Not before breakfast," Captain Harkness declared. "Today is Wednesday, and on Wednesdays Rhys and Emma always serve us a traditional English breakfast. What other job has benefits like that?"

* * *

Approximately two hours later – Maggie had been shown the communal showers in the meantime and given a change of clothes the tall blonde from the lab called Lloyd by her colleagues kept in her locker for emergencies – Rhys and Emma arrived indeed and began to prepare an opulent English breakfast, complete with sausages, baked bones, ham and eggs, breakfast tea, toast and everything that belonged to one. While the hot parts were fired up in the microwave, Sally and Jenny decked the table in the conference room, Ianto made coffee for everyone (except for himself, he added ruefully, but that couldn't be helped) and Beth Halloran came in, too, right on time, with freshly baked blueberry muffins from the nearby bakery.

"I can make coffee," she said apologetically, "but baking is not my thing."

As the muffins were as good as home-made ones, not to mention still warm, nobody seemed to mind, though.

After breakfast Andy Davidson – whom Maggie happened to know from the police investigation concerning Brian's fatal accident – took her to a safe house near Bute Park. It wasn't really a house, just a two-bedroom flat with a closed balcony, and a rather bleak one at that, but it served its purpose.

"It's just until Ianto gets everything settled for your moving," he explained. "He thought it would be better than putting you into one of the restrooms in the Hub. They ain't very nice, you know."

"I wouldn't really mind," Maggie admitted. "I hate being alone… too many memories."

"I can stay here until Emma comes to take you out on a wild shopping spree," Andy offered. "I've got the graveyard shift, so I can sleep in the afternoon."

"You'd really do that?" for the first time since Brian's funeral, Maggie allowed her tears to flow freely. "I won't be very pleasant company, I'm afraid."

Andy gave her one of those friendly smiles she'd already found so comforting when he'd first appeared on the site of the accident and tried to help her.

"It doesn't matter. The first thing one learns as a PC is to sleep whenever one gets the chance, not when it's scheduled," he said. "C'mon, we can sit on the sofa together, watch crap telly, and you can cry over it as much as you want."

As a rule, Maggie wouldn't have cuddled on the sofa with a virtual stranger, in an empty flat not her own. But her life, now that she'd chosen to keep it after all, had taken a truly unexpected turn that she needed to digest first. Besides, Andy Davidson wasn't a complete stranger. He'd checked on her from time to time since the accident; they talked a bit on such occasions, discovering that they both used to have somebody in Torchwood – and had lost them during the same horrible incident.

And now they were both Torchwood themselves… in a manner. Maggie didn't believe in predestination but this _was_ an odd coincidence. Perhaps if one ad family in Torchwood one was touched by the weird in some way – enough to be drawn to the very source of that weirdness?

She shook her head slightly. Brooding led to nowhere; she'd learned that lesson during the last year. She'd been given a second chance at life, a new hope; and she was determined to make the most of it.

~TBC~


	12. Chapter 12: A Ghost From the Past

**Atonement**

**by Soledad**

**Author's notes: **For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

This story is now complete. The series will be continued in "Episode 05: The Old Terror". Keep tuned in.

* * *

**Chapter 12 – A Ghost From the Past**

It took Ianto several days to get everything organised for Maggie's relocation to Glasgow. He talked to Sir Archibald, who was more than happy to accept the new co-worker that would – hopefully – deal with the chaos that was his Archives. He even offered Maggie to stay in the guest wing of his mansion until she'd found enough financial footage to afford a flat on her own, which could take a while, even if one was on the Torchwood pay list.

Maggie and Emma, who'd become fast friends in mere days, hit the shops in the meantime to buy for Maggie a new stock of basic wardrobe. Fortunately for her, Emma knew a number of small shops that offered good, solid quality for a moderate price. She also had an excellent taste in clothes, even if a bit old-fashioned, so Maggie was more than willing to follow her lead.

Most of the time anyway. Pink was _so_ not her colour, while Emma apparently loved it.

She was also given a complete physical – not by one of the male Torchwood doctors but by a pretty lady named Martha Jones who was apparently the medical officer of the local UNIT base. It was fairly obvious that Martha and Captain Harkness had a long history together – one of friendship, not one of romantic interest.

Which, to be honest, surprised Maggie a little. Aunt Madelyn had described Captain Harkness as quite the ladies' man. Of course, as he was currently involved with his boss, he probably didn't want to make Director Jones mad at him by flirting with the pretty doctor.

It seemed that there were no rules against fraternisation at Torchwood and people were all too willing to pair up. Not really surprising, though. Aunt Madelyn had always said that no outsider could ever understand what working for Torchwood meant and that relationships outside the organisation usually ended a bad way.

Perhaps that was the reason why she had never married – and, considering her end, _that_ had been a wise decision.

It was a good thing, then, that Maggie herself didn't intend to marry again. She might have chosen to stay alive, but that didn't mean that she wanted to become unfaithful to Brian. No; Brian had been _the one_ for her and she wouldn't want anyone else.

There were other things to life than wedded bliss, after all. She just needed to find those things.

* * *

Jack had offered to take Martha (whose car was currently at the car mechanic's) back to the UNIT base after Maggie's physical and was about to return to the Hub when someone called his name in the underground parking lot.

Not the one he'd been using for the last hundred-and-some years; nor his true name that was long forgotten. No, it was the name he had used as a Time Agent, and hearing it again – after the less than pleasant interlude with Varyan aka Captain John Hart – he found it a little unnerving.

As he whirled around in shocked surprise, he spotted a dark-clad figure approaching his position between the parked cars: the figure of a woman, wearing a black jacket and skirt with knee-high, laced black leather boots. Her hair was black, too, braided away from her face so tightly that Jack's scalp started to hurt by the mere sight of it. That gave her smooth, pale, ageless face a vaguely reptilian impression.

An impression that wouldn't have been false, as she wasn't one hundred per cent human. Her ancestors belonged to the pioneers who had undergone extensive genetic manipulations that would enable them to settle on Magna III, a hot and arid world both she and Jack called their home planet. Her batch had been the one where a few dormant genes from the evolutionary process had been reactivated. Genes that mankind inherited from the replies that had roamed the Earth millions of years earlier.

Consequently, calling her cold-blooded wouldn't have been entirely a metaphor; meaning that she was able to survive extreme cold by going into hibernation – and she aged at a much slower pace than the average human being. She was also emotionally more detached. Some people would have stated that she didn't have any emotions at all, but Jack knew better. She had a whole army of emotions; it was just so that all her feelings were _cold_, which had made her an excellent training officer at the Time Agency.

Consequently, the pale shadow of a smile that was now gracing her lips counted as a sentimental outburst for her… a feeling that Jack found he whole-heartedly shared. Still, he found that caution would be the better part of the value – he found it a little strange that his ex-colleagues kept popping up, after all those years.

"Tabéah," he said with for him uncharacteristic restrain. "What are you doing here?"

It was good to speak his mother tongue again. Time Agents had come from all human worlds, so they had used Galactic Standard among themselves, but she came from the same _planet_… and still remembered.

"Looking for you, among other things," she replied matter-of-factly. "You can drop the 'h', by the way. I go by Tabea Johnson now."

"You kept your name?" Jack was surprised. Time Agents used aliases when on a mission, as a rule.

"The Germans of this time have an almost identical version," she shrugged. "It was easier than coming up with a different name."

"Have you been on Earth for longer?" Jack asked suspiciously. She nodded.

"I arrived roughly fourteen months ago. It took some time to find myself the right place, from where I can really influence things, but I'm on the right track now," she flashed a badge that identified her as an MI6-agent… and one of the higher middle ranks at that.

"How on Earth did you manage to get into MI6 in only fourteen months?" Jack asked incredulously.

"I got in with the help of psychic paper, of course," she explained. "Once I had a foot in the door, it was easy to fake all the necessary documents. It helps that not even the brasses know all their agents personally."

"Okay," Jack said. "That explains the _how_ – but not the _why_."

"Well, this is the twenty-first century," she shrugged. "We all know this is where the timelines drastically diverge. One possible future would lead to the total subjugation of this planet and the extinction of the human race. I'm here to prevent that possibility from coming true – with your help."

"What do have I do with that?" Jack asked with a frown. "Who's gonna invade the planet this time?"

"I need you because you were the one who had gone undercover in the enemy's territory," she replied. "It was you who brought intel about their purposes and methods. You'd remember, too, had those bastards not wiped your memory."

"The two years I've lost…" Jack whispered, shocked. She nodded grimly.

"Yeah. And you won't be able to regain those memories, ever, because they didn't simply make you forget. They've physically destroyed the part of your brain where the information was located. You might not remember, but you were in hospital long afterwards. It took an awful lot of time for new neural pathways to grow and replace the destroyed ones."

"But if I lost all memories of my undercover mission, how comes that you know what I've found out?" Jack asked.

"You sent back reports regularly," she explained, "which, as a training officer, I could sometimes catch before the High Commander's deputy could have deleted them."

"Subcommander Greystoke?" Jack asked in surprise. "_He_ was behind it all? But why would he do that?"

"Because he was the leader of the cell that infiltrated the Agency," Tabéah replied grimly. "We never learned the true name of the species – you were too careful to include it in your reports. You only ever called them Cell 114."

"Cell 114?" Jack shook his head in confusion. "I do have vague memories of that name and how they operated – how is it possible, after a mind-wipe?"

"They were a known quality already before you'd go undercover among them," she explained. "That's why you were sent there in the first place."

"I wonder why they didn't kill me," Jack said thoughtfully. "Why bother with destroying my memory instead?"

"Killing you would have drawn too much attention," she replied. "Everyone down to the middle ranks knew about your mission; the Agency was preparing a big offensive against them. But if you turned up in a vegetable state, having forgotten all the important details, Greystoke could blame Cell 114 and remain unrevealed, until the time for becoming active would come."

"But what was their master plan?" Jack asked.

"They wanted to take over the Agency," Tabéah said. "That way, they could have controlled legitimate time travel, could have gone back to the past at will and sent their cells to planets about which they'd only learn much later."

"Like Earth," Jack said tonelessly. It all began to make sickening sense. Tabéah nodded.

"Yes. We know for certain that they'd sent a team to Earth; we just didn't know when. All we could find out was that in the twenty-first century, there was suddenly a fork in the timeline. The main line would lead to history as we knew it. In the other one Cell 114 would succeed in taking over Earth and mankind would cease to exist – _including_ its future, in which case you and I would never be born."

"You've managed to prevent _that_ from happening, though, haven't you?" Jack asked. "Or else we wouldn't be having this conversation now." Tabéah shook her head.

"It's not that simple. The takeover attempt hasn't taken place yet, or you'd already know about it."

Jack frowned. "I would? What make you think that?"

"The small detail that – according to our history files – _you_ will be the one who stops the invasion," Tabéah answered. "Unless you fail, of course, in which case the timeline changes and mankind leaves the playground for good. I'm here to prevent _that_."

"And how do you intend to do that?" Jack asked sarcastically.

"By helping you," she said. "Can you imagine how hard it was to find you, after you'd gone rogue? I needed _years_ to track you down in London during the Blitz; then you vanished into thin air and no-one was able to find you, until 200100, when – or so the rumours said – you died on that game station, Satellite Five. But when I got there, you'd already vanished again, so I knew you _had_ to be alive, after all."

"How did you find me, in the end? Oh, wait," Jack stopped her before she could have answered. "You ran into Varyan, right?"

"I did," she admitted, "but by then, I already knew where to look for you… or rather _when_."

"The twenty-first century," Jack said, and she nodded.

"The twenty-first century indeed. But a whole century is a very long time, and I had an entire planet to search for you, so talking to Varyan was really helpful. Even though he blathered a lot of insane stuff."

"He does that when the day is long," Jack agreed. "So you've come to twenty-first century Earth with the specific purpose to find me?"

"I have. And if you come with that crap about your unforgettable jaw line, I might be tempted to break it," she threatened.

"I'm not suicidal… well, not without a sound reason," Jack replied, wondering whether Varyan had told Tabéah about his immortality. She gave no sign that she would know about it, but again, she always kept her cards close to her chest. "So, do you have any solid knowledge about how it will start and when?"

"Not really," she admitted. "All we know is that it will happen somewhen in this year. Travelling into alternate realities is always a bit tricky, and with the Agency having been shut down, the few of us still alive are on our own."

"Oh, yes, Varyan told me that about the Agency," Jack remembered. "What happened?"

"After you were gone, some of us figured out that there was something foul about that memory loss of yours," Tabéah explained. "We created an underground network and started investigating. Even so, it was by accident that we found out Greystoke's role in the whole mess. Turned out, he had an entire cell within the Agency; it was ugly. By the time we'd managed to stop them, all Time Agents of command rank were dead, one way or another, and the scandal hit the roof of the Council chamber. So they decided to shut down the Agency and even tried to eliminate _us_, who know about it."

"So Varyan told the truth," Jack said. "There are only seven of you left?"

"Four, actually," Tabéah said grimly. "Flaeryn's group got into a trap; all three were killed on the spot."

"But are all the authorities insane?" Jack asked in shock. "Don't they know what will happen if we don't stop the invasion?"

"They didn't believe us," Tabéah shrugged. "We had no hard proof – Greystoke had managed to wipe the entire database before we could get to him – so they decided to sweep everything under the carpet."

"And _you_ decided to come back to the twenty-first century and took things in your own hands," Jack finished for her.

It wasn't a question. It was a very Tabéah thing to do.

"Well, I hoped that I could count on your help, but yeah, basically that was the idea," she agreed. "Besides, I needed to find a place – and a time – where I'd be safe from the authorities of our own time. They'd never look for me here… less so since with the Agency gone, means of time travel have been drastically reduced. The question is: _are_ you going to help me?"

"I thought _you_ were supposed to help _me_," Jack returned, grinning. She waved him off impatiently.

"Semantics. The sad fact is, we don't know _what_ will happen and _when_ it will happen, so I'll have to stay in Cardiff and sit out the time of waiting."

"And MI6 will just wait for your return?" Jack asked doubtfully. "Don't you have work to do for them?"

"I've faked some terrorist cell hiding in Cardiff that needs to be looked for," she replied. "It isn't even a lie; I just had to make it more believable for them. I'm supposed to work with the local UNIT personnel."

"Good luck," Jack said sourly. "Colonel Ironpants isn't the most cooperative person on this planet."

"Well, then I'll just have to persuade him to be more reasonable, won't I?" she returned in an extremely dry tone, and Jack almost felt sorry for Colonel Mace. _Almost_. Tabéah had always enjoyed putting belligerent males to their places… and the process always had been anything but pleasant.

"Speaking of obnoxious UNIT officers," he then said, "what do you think about Colonel Oduya? Can _he _be one of those Sleeper agents?"

Tabéah thought about it for a moment; then she shook her head.

"Unlikely," she said. "Sleeper agents know nothing about their true identity; not until the moment they wake up. And when they _do_ wake up, they act directly and brutally, without subtlety. Were Oduya a Sleeper agent awakening the UNIT Headquarters in the Tower of London had already been levelled."

"But he _is_ up to something," Jack said. "And Torchwood seems to be in his way, if his attempt to get a foothold in our territory is any indication."

"He's a dark horse, as twenty-first century humans like to say," Tabéah admitted. "Either covering up something really nasty in the past or building his own way to power. _And_ he's skilled at subterfuge. Not even MI6 has anything on him, and trust me, I've been looking _everywhere_."

"I still don't understand why he's going out of his way to destroy Torchwood," Jack muttered. "One would think we were on the same side."

Tabéah gave him a strangely impassive look that was nonetheless full of cold pity; not many people could have pulled _that_. But not many people had reptilian genes in their genetic make-up, either.

"He's not out to destroy _Torchwood_," she corrected. "He's out to destroy _you_."

"_Me_?" Jack repeated in surprise. "Why would he have anything against me? We've never met before."

"Actually, you have," she replied calmly, "even though you may not remember. He was on the _Valiant_, Jack! As an executive officer. It's not a known fact; he'd served less than three months aboard the airship carrier before the ascent of Harold Saxon. But he _was_ there, during the whole Year That Never Was."

Jack became stark white hearing _that_. "So he remembers?"

Tabéah nodded. "More than that. He knows who – and _what_ – you really are. What you've _become_."

"And so do you, apparently," Jack said grimly. "Or has Varyan told you?"

She shook her head. "No; believe or not, Varyan is still loyal to you."

Jack pulled a face. "He has a strange way to show it."

"He's more than a little insane," she sighed, "but it's no wonder, really. Greystoke and his people captured him after you'd vanished and tortured him to find out where you might be. He never told them, you know… but they _did_ break him. Mentally and literally. He didn't have one hale bone left in his body when Flaeryn's group finally got him out; after everything had gone to hell. We took him to a facility of the Cat People, far in the future. They healed his body, but his mind… it will never be the same."

"I've noticed," Jack said grimly. "He _killed_ me, Tabéah! Tossed me from the top of a twenty-storey building, for God's sake!"

"He always had a hang to violence," she reminded him, "And has even less self-control now than he ever had, which wasn't much to begin with, as you know. But he didn't betray you to Cell 114, no matter what it cost him. Things are never just black and white; you of all people should remember that."

"Perhaps," he allowed reluctantly. "In any case, whichever way, Oduya now knows that I can't die."

"That you don't _stay_ dead," she corrected matter-of-factly.

"Whatever," Jack waved impatiently. "But if he knows that, he should also know that he can't destroy me."

"Wrong," she said. "He can't kill you _permanently_, that's true. But he can destroy Torchwood, to make your work meaningless. And he can _contain_ you: capture you and bury your alive, or cast you in concrete, or throw you into some deep underground prison and swallow the key. You'd starve to death there over and over again, spend centuries in a fetid hole, forgotten by everyone… wouldn't that be bad enough?"

"But why would he do that?" Jack asked with a frown. "What have I ever done to him?"

"Nothing personally," she said. "But you were associated with a Time Lord, and Oduya saw first-hand what the struggle between two Time Lords did to this planet. And he _remembers_."

"So he wants me – and Torchwood – gone cos he fears that the Doctor might return?" Jack asked incredulously. "How stupid is _that_? The Doctor doesn't care for me; never really has. It makes no sense!"

She shook her head grimly.

"On the contrary, it makes perfect sense – in his opinion. He considers you a traitor; Torchwood has been founded to capture the Doctor, basically. Instead, you've become one of his bootlickers and abandoned your duties at the moment he landed that battered blue box of his over the Rift again… and The Year That Never Was happened as a consequence. Or so Oduya sees it."

"He's not entirely wrong at that," Jack murmured. "Without me clinging to the TARDIS she hadn't veered off-course and the Master may never have returned."

"And why did you _have_ to cling to the TARDIS in the first place?" she asked bluntly. "Had the Doctor simply opened the damned door and invited you in, nothing of that would have happened, either."

"You speak like Ianto," Jack grinned humourlessly. "How do you know about it anyway?"

"The _Valiant_ had recorded footage from Saxon's broadcasts," she explained. "He delighted showing that particular scene over and over again. MI6 got hold of those records. They're strictly eyes-only, of course, but…" she shrugged empathically.

Jack understood. She'd always been very good at breaking security codes – much more elaborate ones than what twenty-first century government organisations could come up with.

Still, the news couldn't be any worse. An alien invasion on its way to happen, _plus_ the personal vendetta of somebody who was supposed to be their main ally in fighting said invasion _and_ powerful enough to destroy Torchwood if he put his mind to it; or, at the very least, to force them deep into the underground… Actually, this was the worst thread they'd faced in the Institute's one-hundred-and-some-year-old history.

"I must warn Ianto about this," he said. "He is the Torchwood Director now; he needs to know what we're gonna face. _And _Archie; he may have better chances to make his moves unnoticed, as he's generally considered unimportant."

She nodded. "Do what you must. But no word about _me_."

"I can't do that," Jack said. "Ianto has to know you're not a threat. Your presence has been noticed… and discussed repeatedly."

He didn't call her an _ally_. Tabéah's alliances had always been dubious at best. First and foremost she was loyal to herself.

"But I _am_ a threat, and you know that," she pointed out. "I'm here to stop the Cell 114 invasion, and for that alone. I don't care about collateral damage."

"I don't doubt that," Jack said. "I've known you long enough. And that's another thing Ianto needs to know. I've promised him not to lie about my past anymore, and I intend to keep that promise."

She gave him a long, intense look that went through flesh and bone like a tightly bounded laser beam.

"You've changed," she finally said.

"More than you could probably imagine," he confessed. "You only ever knew me as the fugitive, the embittered survivor. But on this backwater little planet, in these primitive times, I've finally found purpose: a case worth fighting for, a home… and a person for whom I care deeply."

"It makes you vulnerable," she commented neutrally.

"It makes me _human_," he corrected," and I wouldn't have it any other way."

~The End~


End file.
